Religion

[BrooklynZoo]

First of all, i must support the arguements of ATyler, and laugh at Hards poor rebuttals. As the famous Sigmund Freud stated "one does not hold religious beliefs due to logic/rational thinking, rather a deep-seated and infantile urge to believe", again Hard et al, are prime examples of this notion, whereby they succeed in convincing themselves of celestial dictators, but utterly fail at conveying their concepts to others in a logical manner (which i suspect, is impossible to do anyway).

[brendan]

lol will this be another 40 pg thread like the epic "does god exist" thread

[sxcalexc]

lol will this be another 40 pg thread like the epic "does god exist" thread

I'm sad I missed that.

[BrooklynZoo]

Hard said:
"you my friend have a very distorted view of the bible. Show me were it states that if you work on a particular day or have sex before marriage you will die?"

"While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was discovered gathering wood on the Sabbath day.  Those who caught him at it brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly.  But they kept him in custody, for there was no clear decision as to what should be done with him.  Then the Lord said to Moses, "This man shall be put to death; let the whole community stone him outside the camp." So the whole community led him outside the camp and stoned him to death as the Lord had commanded Moses."   Numbers 15:32-36 NAB

rapeedd....?

[Mao]

wut>

[dekoyl]

And then he said..
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."

[Collin Li]

Here is my opinion (without regarding what other definitive sources have said about the two words)

Agnosticism: the position of apathy with respect to deities or gods.
Atheism: the position that deities or gods do not exist

I am an agnostic. I believe that holding a position on deities or gods is completely irrelevant to life here on Earth.

[sxcalexc]

Here is my opinion (without regarding what other definitive sources have said about the two words)

Agnosticism: the position of apathy with respect to deities or gods.
Atheism: the position that deities or gods do not exist

I am an agnostic. I believe that holding a position on deities or gods is completely irrelevant to life here on Earth.

Yes you are a complete agnostic. Most agnostics are marked by indifference. But do you realise Coblin, that there can be middle ground between your two definitions? What if one sees a deity as 'unlikely' rather than definitively non-existent? This too comes under atheism.

[excal]

Here is my opinion (without regarding what other definitive sources have said about the two words)

Agnosticism: the position of apathy with respect to deities or gods.
Atheism: the position that deities or gods do not exist

I am an agnostic. I believe that holding a position on deities or gods is completely irrelevant to life here on Earth.

I agree with this. This is also my definition of the two terms, except I'd change 'apathy' to both 'apathy and/or uncertainty'.

[excal]

O shit man i didn't relise u have a learning disability......

Quit it with the personal attacks.

[Glockmeister]

To answer your question. "IS THERE ANY GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE IN A GOD OR LIVE ONES LIFE AS IF ONE DOES?" I say yes. What do you place your morals and values on without a higher being? Why should you not murder your neighbour i mean there is no such thing as sin afterall? why not rebel against society and go on a murder spree since the worst that can happen is rotting in the ground which you are going to anyway? God serves an important service within society and i don't think you can see that.

I think you'll find that atheists tend to (in general) have a higher moral scope than most other people I know. This is just from my personal experience, and of course is not a complete fact. What is a fact is that the jail-rate of non-religious is far far lower compared to their percentage of presence in society. Where as other groups ie. Christians tend to have a roughly equal percentage of imprisonment to their percentage of presence.

Cite your source.

Moral tendencies are innate and are not formed at all by religion. You may be wondering why an atheist would adhere to morals if they are not being forced to by a higher power. This is because they are, generally, good for the sake of being good. This actually tends to result in a stronger grasp of ethical ideas, as they are being good, not because they are being told to, but because they know it is the right thing to do. Again, this is innate and is a quality possessed by all sane people.

Personally, I don't believe we are innately good. Even the best of us has a capability to be evil depending on our own moral codes, but also what institutions we are associated with (including religion). Brendan put up a post of a lecture by Phillip Zimbardo at TED somewhere and I think he illustrates that point well.

Also @ ATyler, you can debate religion without being patronising to those of other beliefs. If your arguments are resolute, they will do the talking for you, per se.

Agreed on that point.

And yes! That was the quote I was looking for bturville! It echoes vast truths.
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
Einstein truly has some great insights into subject areas other than physics, although he was PRO at that, indeed.

Einstein was a very intelligent man. Just don't bank your arguments on what he said by itself.

Here is my opinion (without regarding what other definitive sources have said about the two words)

Agnosticism: the position of apathy with respect to deities or gods.
Atheism: the position that deities or gods do not exist

I am an agnostic. I believe that holding a position on deities or gods is completely irrelevant to life here on Earth.

Yes you are a complete agnostic. Most agnostics are marked by indifference. But do you realise Coblin, that there can be middle ground between your two definitions? What if one sees a deity as 'unlikely' rather than definitively non-existent? This too comes under atheism.

Religion being a personal belief it really depends how you feel. If you feel it's 'unlikely' and should be considered non-existent for all intents and purposes then you are clearly an atheist. If however you say that it is 'unlikely' but still feel that it could exist then you are an agnostic and not an atheist.

'hard' you missed the entire point of my point, please re read the first sentance.
DOES A BIBLICAL, TRADITION GOD ACTUALLY EXIST: Haha, no.
DOES A HIGHER FORCE ACTUALLY EXIST: Extremely unlikley, but technically one cannot answer this question equivocally due to the restrictive nature of the human mind.
IS THERE ANY GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE IN A GOD OR LIVE ONES LIFE AS IF ONE DOES? Big fucking no.

You ask me to 'prove that god does not exist'.
Firstly, the burden of evidence relies on the individual who proposes the theory.
Secondly, reasoned scientific evidence is in direct contradiction of a religious scripture and thinking.
I can simply state 'invisible fairies exist in my backyard because i have 'faith' in their existence, you can't disprove that!!! haha aren't i a smart!....ERRR NO THANKS

I meant it is a shame that people still cling to a belief in a sky daddy and wish to be its play thing.

I would argue that "invisible fairies exist in my backyard" could exist. There maybe such "invisible fairies exist in my backyard" that you can't see. It is impossible to prove definitively that "invisible fairies" don't exist using the scientific method.

[Collin Li]

Einstein was a socialist - enough to discredit his contributions to areas other than Physics.

[Glockmeister]

Einstein was a socialist - enough to discredit his contributions to areas other than Physics.

lol thats a bit of an ad hominem there mate.

[excal]

Einstein was a socialist - enough to discredit his contributions to areas other than Physics.

lol thats a bit of an ad hominem there mate.

Yeah, probably - or it may just be an overly broad and abstracted generalisation.

[Collin Li]

Well if you think socialist is a personal attack, then that's your agenda, not mine

What I mean to imply is that he was not all-knowing. He believed that economies, like lab experiments, could be planned effectively. He did not understand how to harness the power of market forces to do this far more efficiently.