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Theism, Religion and Lack thereof

Re: Christianity

Agnosticism according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church-

2128 Agnosticism is all too often equivalent to practical atheism.

Now I'm not Catholic, but that sounds interesting to me.

hmm, and res I think I believe in my denial of belief in God, so I believe what I believe is what I believe... waiit a second... yeah that's right.
 
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Re: Christianity

So...Suppose I believe there is a god and that it created everything, but that it has no involvement with the current universe at all. What is that called?
 
Re: Christianity

Superbird I actually am not sure, I thought Deism, but that isn't right. This is bothering me.
 
Re: Christianity

Aobaru said:
I understand we're getting into semantics here... but I disagree with your point that "unless you believe in a god, you are an atheist" because that implies only two courses of action: belief or non-belief in a god. There are those, including myself, who would not feel comfortable taking either side.
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Let's put it this way. Do you think leprechauns exist? No? Well, you can't know for sure, but that doesn't mean you're somewhere in between believing and not believing in leprechauns; acknowledging that yes, there theoretically could be leprechauns the same way everything in the Harry Potter books theoretically could be real doesn't mean you believe in leprechauns in any meaningful way, and it certainly doesn't mean you can't safely say that you don't believe in them. Do you think God is significantly likelier to exist than leprechauns, or unicorns, or any other mythical creature? If you do, please explain why. If not, then you are an atheist in exactly the same sense that we are.

Phantom said:
I say there is no God, and there is no possibility of one. I see no proof, therefore there is no possibility.
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...but that's stupid. "I see no proof, therefore there is no possibility"? That's just plain arguing from ignorance; it's no better than believing in God because you can't imagine any other way the universe could exist.
 
Re: Christianity

Both of my parents were raised in a majority Roman Catholic country and when they came to the United States they raised their children with that religion. I don't really think I believed in it at all, from what I can remember. I've done my First Communion and my Confirmation but I have not really learned anything by it. However, I would not consider my current belief as "atheist". I just do not care about religion or if there is a god or not.
 
Re: Christianity

Aobaru said:
So where would agnosticism fit in? Would it be a synonym for atheism?
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Agnosticism is the position that humans cannot answer the question of god's existence one way or another. You can have agnostic atheists and agnostic theists. It's entirely separate from atheism and theism.

In fact I am going to say this again because so many people get it wrong:

Agnosticism is not a middle ground between atheism and theism.

I understand we're getting into semantics here... but I disagree with your point that "unless you believe in a god, you are an atheist" because that implies only two courses of action: belief or non-belief in a god. There are those, including myself, who would not feel comfortable taking either side.
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But there are only two courses of action. Like I said, the only theistic stance is one that claims god exists. If you're unsure, you don't believe in god; therefore you are an atheist. Stop trying to think of it as two opposite positions with a middle ground. Atheism is absence of belief; whether that absence is because you don't think god exists or merely because you're not sure what to think, you're still an atheist.
 
Re: Christianity

I'm going to step in and try to sort this: Agnosticism is not a part of a spectrum with atheism and theism on either side. It's basically an add-on to either atheism or theism. For example, Phantom would be a non-agnostic atheist. Butterfree would be an agnostic atheist. Does that make it clearer?
 
Re: Christianity

Cirrus said:
This completely fits with my own experience. In fact, I think it's the situation of a huge amount of people in both the UK and Europe as a whole (and maybe something that is alien to most Americans).
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I just wanna kinda confirm this as true. While I'm not exactly sure of the religious stance of everyone around me, most everyone I've encountered hold some religious belief, whether it be that God exists or that the Bible is true or whatever.
 
Re: Christianity

This is getting silly. Debates should not be about the meaning of words.

Ultimately, words are defined by how they're used, and honestly, most people do not use "atheist" to include people who just don't care or have no idea and figure the existence of God is something like fifty-fifty. However, that just isn't the point. If the word "atheist" is doing more harm than good in explaining what we actually believe, it's far more productive to stop using that word for the sake of the argument than to sit here missing the point completely by arguing about the word.

I believe that God is about as likely as leprechauns, or unicorns, or Harry Potter. I don't really give a damn what you call it. I think it would be very enlightening for most people to just stop applying a label to themselves and talk about what they in fact believe instead.
 
Re: Christianity

I do understand things a little better now. So, I guess I'm an agnostic atheist, then.

Although I haven't the chance to survey other religions, I'm convinced that Judeo-Christianity is complete nonsense. Their "holy texts" are filled with contradiction after contradiction, rape, muder, etc., all in the name of their god.

Numbers 31:13-18, Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle. "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them. "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

II Kings 15:16, At that time Menahem, starting out from Tirzah, attacked Tiphsah and everyone in the city and its vicinity, because they refused to open their gates. He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women.
 
Re: Christianity

I was raised as a Protestant and went to a Church of England Primary School. So I was an ardent Christian up until the age of about 12 when I re-evaluated everything and what I perceived as the world's relationship with God, and realised that he, nor any other deity couldn't possibly exist.

And about this whole "agnosticism" debate, I've always seen it as the viewpoint of not caring whether God exists or not: complete indifference, if you will.
 
Re: Christianity

Wasn't raised anything. Am an atheist nowadays. Well I always was, but I consciously thought about it and confirmed my position.
 
Re: Christianity

I wasn't raised with any religion, really. I know I was vaguely aware that there was this thing called "religion" at the age of 5 or 6, because my family has always celebrated christian holidays (and I guess I knew they were christian, though I didn't really know the stories behind any of them till a year or two ago) and I remember I used to have this book full of prayers. I used to (and still do, because I love tradition) say one of them before bed every night, but my parents never really told me anything about any sort of religion so I basically turned what was supposed to be a christian prayer into one that had nothing to do with religion or god at all (like, where the prayer said "dear father" I didn't realize that was referring to god and instead turned it into "dear mother and father" because I loved both my parents equally or something). At around 10 years old, my dad started telling me about hinduism and taking me to see a hindu saint when she visited the state every year, but that's always been more about liking the "peace and love" doctrine of said saint than believing in the gods and such present in the hindu religion. My actual ideas about god and such are kinda weird. I don't think there's an actual religion for what I believe, but I tend to call it "atheism with a bit of hinduism thrown in for good measure". Basically, I don't believe in the typical "all-powerful, omniscient being" that seems to be common to most religions. What I do believe in is a "force" of sorts that explains the "why" (that is, where science explains how things work the way they do, this "god" of mine explains why things work the way they do - why the world was created, why there are living things, etc.). The reason I include the hinduism part is because that's very vaguely similar to what my dad has told me about the hindu idea of brahman.

As far as christianity goes, personally I think it doesn't really make much sense. Then again, I don't really know all that much about it so I'm not really qualified to state my opinion.
 
Re: Christianity

Mumei said:
I don't think there's an actual religion for what I believe, but I tend to call it "atheism with a bit of hinduism thrown in for good measure". The reason I include the hinduism part is because that's very vaguely similar to what my dad has told me about the hindu idea of brahman.
............
As far as christianity goes, personally I think it doesn't really make much sense.
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I don't believe in the typical "all-powerful, omniscient being" that seems to be common to most religions.
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It's been a while since my world religions course, so wack me with a cricket bat if I am wrong, but isn't Brahman an "all-powerful omniscent being"? Brahma is the creator god, still all-powerfull, or are you referring to Hiranyagarbha? Though true Brahma is not the sole god, Hinduism is a polytheistic religion; Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. So not only is there one all-powerful being, there are three.
 
Re: Christianity

I believe Brahma is one of the three main gods, but Brahman is the cosmic plane that transcends all of reality.

...I can't think of a good way to explain it, because it's been a few months since my last class of World Religions, and Brahman is a massive concept to begin with. :/
 
Re: Christianity

(Getting back onto the topic...)

What are your opinions on the existence/deity of Jesus?
 
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