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Thoughts on society.....

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El Duque

Bench
Messages
3,845
Eye if it's some boring, lomg stupid story about people seeing God in aparking sign just post the link instead of copying and pasting the whole thing.
 
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imported_E_A__

Juniors
Messages
542
You could ban this dickhead and his 47 passports and offer membership to 14 used handkerchiefs, 17 blades of Buffalo grass and 16 small pebbles.....

And we would be ahead.

I hope you have an accident over Christmas oneye. Nothing trivial though.;)
 
O

ONEYE_VIEW

Juniors
Messages
12
<table cellspacing=1 cellpadding=4 width=10 align=right border=0> <tbody> <tr> <td class=highlightbox> <table cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 border=0> <tbody> <tr> <td align=middle>
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</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table><a target=_top href="http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,5740593%255E703,00.html"><span>No joy at Jesus' birthplace</span>
</a>
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<span>26 December 2002</span>
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<span>WITH Israeli troops waiting in the shadows, the town known as the birthplace of Jesus marked a dreary Christmas Eve -- with no light-filled tree in Manger Square, no bells or music and few pilgrims.</span> ;) <span></span>
 
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imported_kier

Juniors
Messages
325
"Atheism cannot be proven - it involves a leap of faith. As an atheist myself I'm more than prepared to accept that I've gone beyond what "cold hard evidence" alone can provide in terms of answers, and that I as such, have a faith too.
Bertram Russell stated that the application of pure logic to the problem of religion will only result in the result of agnosticism (literally meaning "I do not know").
Faith - in either direction - cannot be proven or disproven by evidence as faith is a standpoint that, by definition, goes beyong evidence."



I understand what is being said here, but I strongly disagree.
By the rationale used, you could say that it requires a leap of faith to not believe in Superman. Sure, there is no proof of his existance, but it can't be proven that he didn't or doesn't exist.
If it requires a leap of faith to be an aetheist, it is an infinitely smaller one than that which is required to believe in God.
(Mystery Man)


Just because a belief may be trivial (or ludicrous, such as believing Superman exists) still doesn't make it any easier to prove.

My pointis nothing more than that- I have real reasons why I do not believe in God - the only thing I do not have is proof (which I cannot provide).

If proof was esential to me I could only be an agnostic. I choose to take a leap of faith in believing in atheism.

I find any discussion on the topic that tries to bring in proof meaningless.

I do take on your point that certain beliefs may require differing amounts of "faith".......I don't however, see why atheism requires less faith than believing in a higher power?
 
Willow

Willow

Assistant Moderator
Messages
110,141
Kier: "I don't however, see why atheism requires less faith than believing in a higher power..."

I agree.
Everyone has their reasons. Most become Atheists because they simply see no need for a god. Neverthless, there is often a hard road to travel before this conclusion is reached.

My grandmother incidentially, was an extremely religious woman... going to church was good for her. It kept her in touch with her friends and prayer made her feel good.My Catholic background saw me get all the 'Cs': Christening, Communion, Confession, Confirmation... and I reckon I've even been Crucified a few times. :)
I was sent off to Sunday School, dragged off to Christian camps.... none of which irked me.

Apart from being told I would go to hell if I didn't obey ten commandments, I really didnt mind the churchies, they were by and large a decent (albeit a little dull) bunch of people.
Like many people who are surrounded by people with faith, it just seems natural to go with the flow. But I did ask questions and I didn't understand the value of worshipping a number of icons when there was so much work to be done in the here an now.

"Atheism cannot be proven - it involves a leap of faith."

The idea of an Atheist having a 'leap of faith' is a contradiction but it helps to explain what some atheists go through to get the monkey off their back. Many 'non-believers' still harbour a view that there has to be something else... not neccessarily God, but they still hang onto the hope that death isn't the end. They may believe the human mind makes some sort of scientific exit after death and join some astral plain... imo, this is because we are driven by an instinct to survive and death is something we simply cannot accept.

To be an Atheist, one has to overcome instinct and conditioning.

Atheists have accepted that the reality of mortality and that death is the end.
Its not for everyone but I have found that this brings a certain amount of clarity in life and even peace of mind.
 
I

imported_Mystery_Man

Juniors
Messages
125
Just because a belief may be trivial (or ludicrous, such as believing Superman exists) still doesn't make it any easier to prove.
My pointis nothing more than that- I have real reasons why I do not believe in God - the only thing I do not have is proof (which I cannot provide).

If proof was esential to me I could only be an agnostic. I choose to take a leap of faith in believing in atheism.

I find any discussion on the topic that tries to bring in proof meaningless.

I agree with what you are saying, but that is why I brought up the Superman example. To me, it's not that different to believing in God.

I do take on your point that certain beliefs may require differing amounts of "faith".......I don't however, see why atheism requires less faith than believing in a higher power?

I guess it comes down to an individual's personal view on things. To me, believing in a higher power requires more faith simply because you are believing in something (which cannot be proved). On the other hand, I don't see atheism as believing in anything. The only faith that I see is the faith that something that has not been proven, and has little to support its existance (excepts for other people's faith), is indeed not true. As you said, if you were to apply logic, you would come to the same conclusion either way, but in my opinion a lot less faith is required in being an aetheist.

I like ozbash's thinking on this issue - being a christian is a defined state, is an atheist ?

To me, having a label for someone who doesn't believe is silly. People who are fans of Star Trek are called Trekkies (or Trekkers, or something like that). Yet people who aren't fans of Star Trek don't have a label. I don't see why people who don't believe in a higher power should, therefore, have a label. As I said before, I see those who have faith in there beinga higher power as the ones believing in something that cannot be proven - not the Aetheists.

What I'm trying to say is that if not for Christians' beliefs, there would be no need for Aetheists to not believe, there would be no labels for non-believers, and there wouldbe no need for non-believers to take a supposed leap of faith.

 
C

CanadianSteve

Guest
Atheists: does atheism to you mean not believing in anything supernatural? Or just not believing in God?

Do you check your horoscope and put any credence in it? Do you wear a "lucky" shirt when your team is playing, because they won last time you wore it, or have any other superstitions? A while back I took some heat for mocking the thread that suggested that a UFO had something to do with the WTC attack - do some of you atheists believe in UFO's?

Many posts ago someone, I think Eye, had a post showing the level of Christian belief in Western countries (something like that). The one that showed the US had more religious people than the other countries. It seemed to show that more people are turning away from Christianity and other religions, or that society is becoming more secular.

And yet, look at the number of people interested in the occult, who believe their horoscopes, who think they can talk to dead relatives, etc. Look at the increase in the number of movies, books, etc that are about ghosts, witches, and other supernatural things.

My take on all this is that when people turn away from God, many of them turn not to atheism, but tosome other form of spiritual belief. I say this is because man, having been created by God, has an innate instinct to believe in something outside himself. If not God, people will turn to some other supernatural or spiritual thing to believe in.
 
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ozbash

Guest
i dont know if i believe in the super natural or not.
i used to work at a house caring for intellectually handicapped residents,at 12-15 am, i would wake up shivering even in the summer.some time ago an old lady had died there at that time.it could have just been something i had talked myself into...
i have seen some very strange things first hand (involving maori at a funeral) ,but i havnt formed an opinion.

no horoscopes.

i wear a lucky footy shirt to job interviews-- i currently have a job :)

i have had a go at black magic- imho its a load of shit but i,m not sure about voodoo...

i do believe in ufo,s.
i think this universe is so extremely vast (beyond imagination), i reckon we must be pretty arrogant to think we are the only ones here/there/anywhere.
 
Willow

Willow

Assistant Moderator
Messages
110,141
Canadian Steve: "Atheists: does atheism to you mean not believing in anything supernatural? Or just not believing in God?"
"Look at the increase in the number of movies, books, etc that are about ghosts, witches, and other supernatural things."

There is no doubt that strange things happen and throughout history, gods have received credit for such phenomenon. Most things that gods have received credit for have been explained by advances in science.
People have indeed turned to other explanations... some are relatives of mine... I have a mad aunt-in-law who believes in anything with fruitcake in it. Last I heard she formed a politcal party.

Anyway, imho, just as God was created by humans, so is the Supernatural. God is just another 'super being' we can read about in books and watch on TV or at the movies. So I don't believe in the Supernatural, as in astral, heavenly or magical. But that doesn't mean Athiests don't believe in anything.

Sometimes people compare Nihilists to Athiests. A common misconception I suppose.

"My take on all this is that when people turn away from God, many of them turn not to atheism, but tosome other form of spiritual belief. "
Hmmm, well, I never considered myself as someone who 'turned away from God'. I reckon I just rejected the conditioning that most people accept without question. I don't mean to sound like a smartarse but it had nothing to do with 'turning away from God'... that being because God never existed in the first place.

"If not God, people will turn to some other supernatural or spiritual thing to believe in"
I thought itoften happened the other way around... people get into some silly system of belief and then 'turn their back' on it, replacing it with a god.
 
C

Cronulla_Mania

Bench
Messages
4,446
Yeh, but hold on, being an Atheist still involves believing in things. Atheists believe, as Willow said earlier, that once you die its the end and you never come back. Isn't that a belief in itself? And what proof do u have that when you die its the end? Its a revolving argument, and there is no answer once again.

Who here is to judge on the size of a leap of faith? Christians suggest that we go onto something else when we die, Atheists believe that its the end. They are both issues of faith, becausenone of us know!

Moffo
 
Willow

Willow

Assistant Moderator
Messages
110,141
Sorry Moffo, beat you to it... Nihilists and Athiests are two different things.
 
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