The Religion of Theism, Atheism and Agnosticism.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Of course I don't understand. Only thing you have proven is that ignorance can cause more than one on off scenario. In this scenario understand no-understand. The message is mostly unimportant.

Double post Internet fail thing

reply to post by izero

Of course I don't understand. Only thing you have proven is that ignorance can cause more than one on off scenario. In this scenario understand no-understand. The message is mostly unimportant.

Then I shall assume you are an ufrack ambresionist. You don't have to know anything about what I'm talking about to hold an opinion, right? That's what you keep saying. There's either belief or no belief. So I'm going to label you an ufrack ambresionist even though you don't have the awareness to form a sound opinion.

After all, babies are atheists even though they don't even have the language skills to ask you what the hell a god is. They don't even know who the President is or what their favorite color is. But they gotta be atheists because all it takes is ignorance, right?

Say hello to the ufracks for me, would you? I miss those guys.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


All that proves is that I'm ignorant.

The interesting thing is though, that I don't care. Much like a baby whether there is a god or not.

In every religion there are those who believe those who do not believe and those who do not know.

In order for god to exist there has to be those who believe, those who do not believe and want to destroy god and misguide other and those who are lost or don';t know what path to follow.

For god to exist there needs to be those who believe in him, those who do not and those who need to fought over.

The conflict between these two groups is what keeps god alive. yes you help in this atheist you are guilty of this.


from a theist point of view dis believers are allied with the one who wants to destroy god. The ones who do not know are the ones who need to be saved.

from an atheist point of view believers want to keep the idea of god alive. The ones who do not know are the ones who need to be saved from the believers.

they all exist by some kind of relationship to the concept of god.

and from that relationship to the idea of god a religion is created.

reply to post by izero

All that proves is that I'm ignorant.

The interesting thing is though, that I don't care. Much like a baby whether there is a god or not.

So atheism is a product of ignorance? What is theism a product of? Faith? Seems like a good answer.

Atheism - ignorance of a higher power that may or may not exist

Theism - faith in a higher power regardless of whether or not it exists

Oh, but ATS cracks me up sometimes.

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by izero

 

All that proves is that I'm ignorant.

The interesting thing is though, that I don't care. Much like a baby whether there is a god or not.

So atheism is a product of ignorance? What is theism a product of? Faith? Seems like a good answer.

Atheism - ignorance of a higher power that may or may not exist

Theism - faith in a higher power regardless of whether or not it exists

Oh, but ATS cracks me up sometimes.

edit on 23-4-2013 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

Like i said in an earlier post atheism can be a product of ignorance (default state), it can also be the product of investigation. All that matters is on or off theist or atheist.

Anyway strawman arguments, coupled with gross blanket statements, leads me to suspect that this game set match to me. Thanks

reply to post by bb23108


If God does not act upon physical reality—that is, the senses—then God is irrelevant. If something does not act in a way which is quantifiable it has no actual bearing on our existence.

Take, for example, a thought. A thought is, inherently, powerless, impotent, and without effect. It remains so until it transcends the mind, and is made into a physical act, or a tangible device. All of the greatest thoughts in the world will make no difference if they are never transubstantiated into a physical thing which can be seen, touched, held, and used.

God is no different. When God is a feeling in your heart, or a thought in your consciousness, He is pointless and useless in a discourse on reality. God needs to transcend his thought-feeling state, and become material for Him to have any importance, or weight, in our world. Until He does this, God is no different from any of the characters in the dream I had this morning. Interesting? Certainly. Plausible? Most definitely. Real? Not at all.

That's not to say that metaphysics doesn't have its place. It certainly does. Alongside philosophy, spirituality, mysticism, and magick. That place being within the inner-sphere of personal experience.

God, the gods, angels, daemons, faeries and all other manner of psycho-spiritual creatures belong in the private life of the individual, not the public forum of the population. They are creatures of thought and emotion, not atoms and molecules. They are manifested artistic representations of our hopes, our fears, the things which bring us joy, and that which causes tears. They are not real though.

And reality is the final court of appeal.

If I cannot see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, or hear it, then it belongs nowhere but my private life.

So, you can keep your Unconditional Reality behind closed doors, where it belongs, just like I do. Or, you can find a way to make your God manifest in a quantifiable way. One or the other. God simply cannot play in a world of science, unless He comes down off His high horse and joins us in the physical universe.

~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by AfterInfinity


My fellow logical thinker, at least there is someone else in this world who understands. What I've concluded about discussing this type of thing to close minded people is like trying to describe a color to a blind person, it just doesn't work. As long as people like this continue to think that humans are top of evolution and technology the longer they will continue to de-evolve and believe that we are some freak accident of evolution. There brain will literally never be able to think logically because their idea of logic is completley undeveloped. As a wise man once said..


“I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.”
-Albert Einstein

reply to post by izero

Anyway strawman arguments, coupled with gross blanket statements, leads me to suspect that this game set match to me. Thanks

Despite whatever impressions you may have gotten from this discussion, neither the forum nor any of its members are out to get you. As such, you are more than welcome to continue pondering this subject along with the rest of us. But if you feel you cannot tolerate the atmosphere, then do what you feel you must.

reply to post by Buehler

discussing this type of thing to close minded people is like trying to describe a color to a blind person, it just doesn't work.

Depending on the extent of blindness, blind people can see colors. It's a common misconception that they can't. And for those who absolutely have lost all light-sensitivity, they have devices which emit tones in response to visible light waves, thus allowing the blind to identify colors by sound.

the longer they will continue to de-evolve and believe that we are some freak accident of evolution

We're actually the result of incalculable trial-and-error runs, which produced the most effective traits, and qualities, for survival in the environment we forged for ourselves. So, not a "freak accident," but more of a concerted effort of conscious will to be better, in conjunction with our environment.

“I fear the day when the technology overlaps with our humanity. The world will only have a generation of idiots.”
-Albert Einstein

This I completely agree with. Technology tricks us into thinking human connection, through speech and touch, is unnecessary or irrelevant. Such is the route of civilization though. So, in response I'd like to raise one of my own favorite quotes:

"The human race will eventually die of civilization" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by Wandering Scribe

If God does not act upon physical reality—that is, the senses—then God is irrelevant. If something does not act in a way which is quantifiable it has no actual bearing on our existence.

This is what I would call the realism point of view. And then there's idealism, where the stuff inside of our heads has just as much an effect on us as everything outside of our heads, and therefore must be cultivated toward whatever end we deem most necessary.

Some people are realists, and some are idealists. It's not exactly something you can say is wrong or right, considering both parties have contributed staggering amounts of ideas and products to the progress of our world. It's not like either has been proven completely useless. Quite the contrary. Atheism, agnosticism, and theism have all given birth to some fantastic leaders and visionaries. So as I say, different strokes for different folks. The world would be a very boring place if everyone thought the same way.

There seems to be a bit of confusion here as to some very simple definitions.

Agnostic: claim that knowledge of god is unknowable
Gnostic: claim that knowledge of god is knowable

Agnostic theists do exist. One cannot lump agnostics and atheists as "nearly the same".

How an atheist can think that they are accidentally put tough what ever existence they perceive this to be only to end up in the same nothingness they came from not realizing the extreme flaw of not questioning ... ... is beyond me.

Yes, it is beyond you. It is also factually incorrect.

How a theist can fear nothingness as much as an atheist fears life after death

Most atheists don't fear life after death. Most don't believe in it, or for those few like me, we believe that the possibility of an afterlife can be entertained. Just because there may be an afterlife, does not mean that it was a product of a god(s).
I don't claim to know it to be true or untrue, thus, I am also, in addition to being an atheist, an agnostic as well.

And the agnostic, who think you can not know when really deep, deep down you know.

No, I do not know. That is why I am agnostic.

The truth is we all are all of the above at some point or another, we all doubt, we all believe and we say you just can't know. It just depends on what spoon fed truth we decided to cling on to for dear life.

If anyone knew "the truth" we wouldn't be having this discussion right now.

reply to post by smilesmcgee


And how would you define the term "god"? It seems that most users here have a rather partial understanding of the word. A superhuman sentient power representing one or more aspects of reality. That's how I define the word "god". What about you?

In fact, I'll extend that question to every member participating in this discussion. How do you define the word "god"?

reply to post by Wandering Scribe

Originally posted by Wandering Scribe
If God does not act upon physical reality—that is, the senses—then God is irrelevant. If something does not act in a way which is quantifiable it has no actual bearing on our existence.

You seem to be assuming that until our limited physical senses and/or science can quantify an Unconditional God, it has no relevance. That is like saying consciousness has no relevance because it hasn't been quantified - and yet it is self-evident that without it there is no perception, no discussion here, no enjoyment of life, nothing.

Making a statement that consciousness is irrelevant is just the materialistic argument that disallows consciousness or God or anything not currently quantifiable in the external world by the senses or science, its obvious existence - and yet it is self-evidently the case that consciousness exists.

I understand this is the discipline of scientific-materialism, and that is fine for that discipline - but as scientific-materialism is adopted more and more as a world view, that we are only the material body-minds, we see the destructive force this separative, materialistic, egoic, idealistic philosophy is causing.

Originally posted by Wandering Scribe
God is no different. When God is a feeling in your heart, or a thought in your consciousness, He is pointless and useless in a discourse on reality. God needs to transcend his thought-feeling state, and become material for Him to have any importance, or weight, in our world. Until He does this, God is no different from any of the characters in the dream I had this morning. Interesting? Certainly. Plausible? Most definitely. Real? Not at all.

You seem to believe that only the material is real and yet whenever I ask anyone what does the room you are in right now actually look like in reality, there is no way to really answer the question because at best such an answer would be limited to a single point of view of what the room seems to look like from that pov.

From a different point of view the room looks different. But what does the room ACTUALLY look like in reality? We do not know, nor do we know what anything actually IS in reality - and yet we tend to hang our entire notion of reality on what we perceive with these body-minds. Is this justified when we cannot even know what the simplest room actually looks like in reality?

Originally posted by Wandering Scribe
That's not to say that metaphysics doesn't have its place. It certainly does. Alongside philosophy, spirituality, mysticism, and magick. That place being within the inner-sphere of personal experience.

Simple considerations of what the room actually looks like is of the senses and external - hardly metaphysical or mystical - just a simple example of how pretentious, and even deluded, we tend to get with our absolute reliance on the senses for basing our reality on.

Originally posted by Wandering Scribe
If I cannot see it, smell it, taste it, touch it, or hear it, then it belongs nowhere but my private life.

Interesting that you did not say "feel" it, but rather "touch" it. So you are saying the love that lovers feel is irrelevant because it is not fully quantifiable by science? Or relative to the sense of touch, if I touch something it may feel differently than it does to another, just like seeing a room looks different for each of us - but this difference is okay because we can generally accept that the room exists and the object we are touching exists? Hardly proof of what these objects actually are or what their existence actually looks like in reality. Again, basing our entire presumption of reality on the senses appears very limited - flawed even.

Originally posted by Wandering Scribe
So, you can keep your Unconditional Reality behind closed doors, where it belongs, just like I do. Or, you can find a way to make your God manifest in a quantifiable way. One or the other. God simply cannot play in a world of science, unless He comes down off His high horse and joins us in the physical universe.

You are assuming that even the Unconditional God is some "Great Other" or "Elsewhere" - a common misconception by almost everyone when thinking about God. If God is Unconditional, that does not imply separation from conditions nor causality in the conditional world.

Presuming, as you say, just the "world of science" as reality, already leaves the Unconditional out of the consideration as well as consciousness, which again, is fine as a discipline for certain scientific discovery, but hardly the basis for real recognition of what reality actually is.

Science needs to be relegated to its rightful place in this world, as a means to serve the world - not the means for becoming the world-view-materialistic-god everyone worships in the hopes of being given some ultimate pleasure through the endless consumption of material objects.

reply to post by Wandering Scribe


Most effective traits? Then howcome we have the LEAST effective traits for surving in the wild? Like are you kidding me? if our traits are the most effective then why is every other animal so much more adapt than us to survive in the wild? If loosing our hair was effective trait then why does no other mamal loose their hair completey? no matter what environment! Why would we loose our nice fur coat in the freezing wilderness only to have to use animal hides to keep us warm anyways?

Like think of a simple example lets say.. a dog! If we are trial and error of best traits then howcome although our species is much older than theirs they are adapted to the environment much greater than us. It would be nice to be able to smell a buffalo from a few miles away instead of walking around until you see one and hope that it doesn't run off? But make sure your down wind cause a lion probably already tasted you in the air with their ADAPTATIONS to survive in the wild. We are slow as hell, our hearing sucks, walking on two legs is much more stressful to displace your weight than on four. And we would not loose opposable thumbs on our feet! If we evolved for better traits and to work with tools then wouldn't it be nice to be able to sit down and hold a spear with your feet and sharpen a spear with your hands? Or when you're building stuff? Why does the phrase "I could use an extra hand" even exist?

yeah it would be pretty handy to be able to write with one hand, use a calculator with the other, while holding a light shining perfectly where you need it and still have an extra hand to stroke your chin hair when you think hard.

reply to post by izero

Break the word atheism down

Theos - god
A - without

On or off.

It's that simple and it doesn't care why it is on or off.

You forgot the most important part! By design I'm sure...

-ism |ɪz(ə)m|
suffix
forming nouns:
1 denoting an action or its result: baptism | exorcism.
• denoting a state or quality: barbarism.
2 denoting a system, principle, or ideological movement: Anglicanism | feminism | hedonism.
• denoting a basis for prejudice or discrimination: racism.
3 denoting a peculiarity in language: colloquialism | Canadianism.
4 denoting a pathological condition: alcoholism.
ORIGIN from French -isme, via Latin from Greek -ismos, -isma .

Apparently it does care whether it's on or off.

A religion is a system of beliefs; this system can be shared by many, institutionalized, or a set of personal beliefs. A theist believes in a diety; an atheist believes in the absence of a diety, and an agnostic believes that the question of the existence of a diety is uncertain. Each is a belief system, thus each is a religion. I've come to this conclusion and my world religions professor has stated the same thing.

reply to post by Quarky


I'm not saying anything about religion, you act like if someone doesn't believe we evolved than we beileve some guy out of no where said let there be light BAM!!! Humans, BAM! noo, but the notion that we evolved completely with no intervention is absurd. Science is leaning more and more toward it everyday.

I just love how many atheists are so proud of being atheist. They love to tell you they are because it makes them "cool".

Most religious people make the world a better place because of the teachings and ideas they follow.....MOST(minus Islam

The idea that being religious makes someone an idiot or a bad person is moronic. I believe in God and I find that I can believe and still believe in scientific facts like dinosaurs or the age of the Universe etc. But to say someone is dumb for thinking God created the heavens and life isn't a far fetched at lightning striking mud and spontaneously forming bacteria that eventually became human.