Religion: If You Don't Believe In It Why Does It Bother You?

Heh, Encyclopedia Dramatica is always worth a few offensive chuckles.Uh, 0 for 3 there, Bigheadkitty. :)

I can't believe this requires reiteration, folks:
1. Atheism is the lack of belief in god. There are those who believe there is no god and those who are not sure of god's existence (to varying degrees) but lack a distinct belief in any god. Both are described as atheists.

2. The former group who believe there is no god are known as GNOSTIC (meaning "knowing") atheists. That is a belief. People who believe in god and can make some claim about knowing him (i.e. anyone in a religion) are GNOSTIC theists.

3. Anyone who claims to not know about god's nature, who knows nothing of god is an AGNOSTIC. This can include both atheists AND theists. I, for example, am an agnostic atheist. My mother tends to think there must be some kind of god out there but we do not understand his nature, making her an agnostic theist.

Thus calling atheism a belief system is patently false. It is a blanket term describing a LACK of belief, which is why Jaerik's description is so wonderfully apt. And now that we've had our language lesson, kiddies...
I believe the sun is a star. It is. You're wrong.
Truthiness?
Ohhhh, ohhh, you're a Buddhist! Or possibly a Taoist? Well, you talk a big game about labels, but as a language teacher, trust me, we have labels for a reason.

There's this prevailing sense in eastern philosophy that all things are in fact one, that the division of everything is an illusion and that all things are truly one. Interestingly enough, the pursuit of a Grand Unified Field Theory in physics postulates something similar; that all matter and energy is really variations on one thing. Back when I was heavily into Taoism, I ate that kind of thing up.

Truth is, even if we can say that we are made of the same stuff physically, it doesn't mean jack spiritually. There is nothing to indicate we have souls or that they become one with the universe, nirvana, the Tao, etc., although it's a neat idea. But unless you live on planet Marklar, we have to deal with a world grounded in physical truths, and those truths require labels.

You make some good points, Oliveman, but the guru-talk is kind of cryptic. And you're still missing something:
Even without the divisions of religion, there would still be divisions by belief, and having beliefs is common and natural. Atheism is not a belief itself, but atheists, like everyone, HAVE beliefs. In that sense, you haven't pointed out how religion is itself harmful, and I'd argue that most of the time, it is not. You're right that people can be brought together by seeking the truth, but the Truth isn't something you figure out by staring at your navel, not something within. No, the Truth (wait for it) is out there.

^

tl;dr

Where is the Agnostic defination.. Oh wait. Let me post it...

Agnostic:

Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable.[1] Agnosticism can be defined in various ways, and is sometimes used to indicate doubt or a skeptical approach to questions. In some senses, agnosticism is a stance about the differences between belief and knowledge, rather than about any specific claim or belief.


I felt that there are the ones too, that sit on the fence and question both sides.

=/

I wont argue about definitions anymore becuase it seems to be a more or less a matter of where one looks the definition up;)But on a lighter note (Being sarcastic) if the Jews ahve it right and they are indeed theonly ones to go to a heaven then we are all F U C Thttp://www.mapsorama.com/maps/world/map_world_religions.gif

Oh no, you didn't read my post! And I worked so hard on it! Now you've made me soooo sad! Sniffle-sniffle-boo-***-hoo!

Not sure if that's summarizing my reply to Oliveman or a rib at me, but you're right either way. :D

I like reading maruaba's posts he puts thought into them. And somone link the pic in the url that i put in a post above this.

yesssssssssssss

not a rib @ you, your post was pretty awesome

as i've said several times before

i appreciate a well thought-out argument, no matter which side it's on

So 365.25 days/yr x1000 years x6424 years age of earth in the bible (correct me if I am worng cuase im not sure) =

2,346,366,000 guess that is plausible for the age of the earth. I do realize that the general belief is around 4.5 billion years but with numbers that big who the hell knows;)

how did you feel about his penis

yeah this guy is great man

wait, system of a down?

lolllllllllllll

you should tell us about how totally deep their lyrics are man

i am on the edge of my seat

Before my dumbass goes to sleep, and by the way Im on neither side of the debate because personally I have no clue in either direction.

In order to solve it we either die and there is a happy place or there is not.

The aliens come back and say "By the way we put yuo here and gave you some manuals on how to live yuor life, you failed now die!"

We could prove evolution 100% by takeing a big glass dome putting water (Hydrogen/oxygen)air(Nitrogen,oxygen,carbon and a bit of misc stuff) maybe soem coal or charcoal for some extra carbon. Keep it at a nice temperature, throw a few cosmic rays at it and come back in a billion years or so. If theres a guy beating on the glass then we prove evolution. If a bunch of coal, water and air is all we find then guess not lmao.

I left spaces for you maruraba.

HAY WAIT THE EARTHS GOT 4.6 BILLION NOFAIR :(

Lmao sev but we werent here the entire time, the dome will eb a scientific experiment to prove once and for all. Maybe we should keep cameras on it too but that eb a alot of data to store;)

I guess we also should make sure noone can get in or out of said dome cuase then a god or an alien could corrupt the experiment. And thers 6.8 billion or so of us nutbags loose on this planet now.

NO NO SARCASM HERE NONE WHATSOEVER WHAT WOULD GIVE YOU SUCH AN IDEA

but wat if god mde a dude n thr just cuz he wantd u 2 B wrong tho

Gnostic Atheist unfortunately seems to be the majority.

Humans are so terrified of questions that they can use the same (lack of)evidence to support completely different (And absurd) conclusions.

The universe is so vast there is no such thing (And I mean ABSOLUTELY NO SUCH THING) as a statistical impossibility. Random chance is an entirely plausible explanation with a sample size measuring in the Trillion upon Trillions.

The origin of the universe is the greatest question there is, literally. If we accept a religious answer, we will never discover it ourselves, or more importantly, never have the experience of trying to discover it for ourselves.

Essentially, nothing. First there was nothing, then there was a universe. If all the particles around re-combined, we'd be back to nothing
Yep. It's not really "beauty" and "destruction", it's just mass and energy. Beauty and destruction are human terms. Oxygen molecules don't care if you play FFXI or WoW - they're just doing physics.
Yes to first (see first answer) and "sporadically" is a bit of a stretch. Life took a very long time to get going (billions of years).
To get me Herald's Gaiters! Aside from that, we're just here, enjoy it while you can ^^
It happened in the sense that after planets and stars and so on formed, the planet lined up that way. And, the conditions on Earth turned out to be favorable for water/oxygen/carbon-based life. A change in the axis actually would NOT have prevented life, only changed the seasonal weather of the planet (which areas are cold/hot/etc.) There are many sources to show this, I can provide links if you like.

Changing the axis NOW would be bad - our societies wouldn't take that well. But the exact tilt isn't actually a big deal.
Not nothing - the things that were here on the Earth. And it took a looooooooooong time!
Current estimates are ~13 billion years. Looks about right from the research I've done. As a general guess I'd say somewhere in low 10s of billions is correct.
Except I just did. The evidence is all out there. If you choose to ignore scientific evidence, that's fine, and I hold no ill feeling towards you. That's your right as a free human! But don't say there's no evidence, or that it's all wrong, or what not. It's there, and if you want to react to it, be specific on where it's wrong. If you choose to believe otherwise, that's fine, and I won't bother you. Just don't preach to anyone.
Yeah .... no.
Not true. There are many commands in religion to explicitly cause harm - not to mention all the violence done in the name of religion. It's an opinion, but I believe we'd all be better off if we took most of the morals of religions, and just drop the whole God part of it.

I understand evolution perfectly. It is the equivialnt of haveing a computer program to add 1+1 and it turning into us all from mutations. Basically we probably have no clue where we came from nor will we ever. For all we know theres some big *** invisible blob that popped a zit and the universe is the puss that blew out in all directions. Every few hundred years or so a new idea comes about so our greatgrand kids (If we are hetrosexual according to evolution, unless they spooge in a jar and artificially do it) will probably be contemplateing new ideas and laughing at evolution and more than likely God as well.

Exactly.