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| Thread: Why Is Atheism So Prevalent In Online Communities |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted May 17, 2003 11:19 PM |
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Hey Mercy, What's up??
I believe you might be confusing atheisem with agnosticism.
Atheism is the affirmative belief that there is definitely, certainly no "God." An affirmative commitment to the belief that god does not exist.
Agnosticism is no commitment to any particular belief; a declaraion of no belief one way or the other. An expression of uncertainty.
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IRh
Famous Hero
Lizard
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posted May 18, 2003 12:56 AM |
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Atheism or Agnosticism?
It's under question. You can understand these words in different senses. What i can say about this:
- atheist: person who believes that there is NO GOD, NO ANY GODS AND THAT'S ALL.
- agnostic/atheist: a person that don't believes neither in existence nor non-existence of any supreme beings. Few facts pro, few facts contra. "So, probably there is no god..." - he says. May be really non-believing.
- agnostic: a person that really doesn't believe, but fears it and so imagining some gods: "There is a supreme force, but not that naive Bible God, but any ununderstansible thing". [Sorry if offenced someone] I heard a hypothesis that human after death is not that judged, but his after-life depends on his life this way: if you're good, you *develop* yourself for good existance, and if you're bad... you aren't *developed*. Not judges, but a "filter" based on World properties & laws. I think it's an example of this meaning of agnosticism: stretching /normal/ religion concepts into science-looking ones. I understand. Nobody wants to die, eh?
Also think about sub-conscience (right spelled? :[). Does it believe? Does your mind believe? Does your heart believe? I think we can find any combination.
Heard about an umbrella? People decided to pray together and ask Heaven for a rain, for it was no rains. And only one came with umbrella. "Men! We're praying about rain, don't we?" - he said.
If someone says: "I believe" or: "I'm an atheist" - don't believe him. May be he doesn't lie. But does he tell truth? Only think about things you do without thinking. Have you taken an umbrella?
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Khayman
Promising
Famous Hero
Underachiever
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posted May 18, 2003 05:20 PM |
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Word Choice & A Cute On-Topic Joke
Quote:
agnostic: a person that really doesn't believe, but fears it and so imagining some gods: "There is a supreme force, but not that naive Bible God, but any ununderstansible thing". [Sorry if offenced someone]
No offense taken; however, I would probably have probably chosen a better word than "fear" for an agnostic & would probably not use the word "naive" to describe the Biblical God. Perhaps there is a different meaning to the words you use, than to how I use them. Instead of "fear" I would have maybe used "uncertain", and for "naive", well, not really sure what word I would use. I think perhaps you may have been using "naive" to describe the followers of the Biblical God, and not the god itself. Besides that, I liked your descriptions of the beliefs (or non-beliefs for that matter).
Here's a little joke I once heard...
What do you get when you cross agnostic with a dyslexic with an insomniac?
Somebody who lies awake all night wonder if there really is a dog. 
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"You must gather your party before venturing forth."
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IRh
Famous Hero
Lizard
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posted May 18, 2003 08:02 PM |
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*smile*
When talking to noobs: please don't only read they wrote, but also guess what they tried to say
Yeah, may be you can find better words than me. Trying to explain what I mean:
- fear. Uncertain... also may be. Fear? What I mean: "Brain: THERE IS NO GOD! Heart:[screwing eyes] ah, won't the lightning with 500 SP strike onto my head? Won't I go to the hell?". I explain as I can... 8[ Because, really, no man believes in his death. Howewer, in life after death, too... You want to die? You're not bad, god is merciful, eh?
- naive. No. I mean agnostics find the God *concept* naive ("The grew-bearded old man with shining head and sitting on a cloud, judging every man after death. I would say to Him..."). Remember: the savage gods often are very man-alike: the have wifes, houses, they hunt or work on fields. Yes, it's too stretched examples. I understand only a few adult believing ppl would consider god as "the shining old man".
One more agnostic thought: "There are different gods: God, Allah, Budda, that religions are prejudices, but the the truth is in the middle. There is smbody... supreme... omnipotent... that are only His names..."
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Laelth
Famous Hero
Laelth rhymes with stealth.
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posted May 18, 2003 09:34 PM |
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Edited By: Laelth on 18 May 2003
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I've found that the term "agnostic" is used by religious people to contain and conceptualize the beliefs of atheists. Atheists are, somehow, less frightening if you can get them to admit that they're not certain whether there is a God or not. Ultimately, though, we're all agnostics. None of us knows, for certain, that there is a God or a "higher power" of any kind, but many of us believe that there is. We call this belief faith because it is exactly that ... a belief and not what philosophers might call "true knowledge." Atheists believe there is no God in the same way that traditional, religious people believe there is a God. In the final analysis, though, we're all agnostics (according to the strict definition of that term).
-Laelth
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Alan P. Taylor, Attorney at Law, LLC
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted May 18, 2003 09:39 PM |
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theist = "There is a God."
atheist = "There is no God."
agnostic = "I don't know if there is a God."
nontheist = "Anybody want to order pizza tonight?"
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Drive by posting.
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Sir_Stiven
Honorable
Legendary Hero
banned
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posted May 18, 2003 10:05 PM |
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Quote:
theist = "There is a God."
atheist = "There is no God."
agnostic = "I don't know if there is a God."
nontheist = "Anybody want to order pizza tonight?"
hmmm that would make me both an agonstic and a nontheist... now how would those two work together? ...i believe that there is a God in my pizza? 
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Mercy_Severity
Adventuring Hero
answer seeker
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posted May 18, 2003 10:58 PM |
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I know well what those are peacemaker, but when i said its a matter of persepective its like this. You can say its a non belief: I don't believe there is a god. Or as a belief I believe there is no god. Its just a different way of saying the same thing.
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted May 18, 2003 11:44 PM |
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Quote:
hmmm that would make me both an agonstic and a nontheist... now how would those two work together? ...i believe that there is a God in my pizza?
Bloody hell. That would mean that I commited Deicide last night. The Lord is in my colon.
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Lews_Therin
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 19, 2003 12:30 AM |
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Quote:
Atheism is the affirmative belief that there is definitely, certainly no "God." An affirmative commitment to the belief that god does not exist.
Quote:
- atheist: person who believes that there is NO GOD, NO ANY GODS AND THAT'S ALL.
Quote:
Atheists believe there is no God in the same way that traditional, religious people believe there is a God.
Thatīs the foolish thing religious zealots would like atheism to be. On the other hand, atheists define their view like this:
The Oracle ("Oracle of Reason" by Jacob Holyoake and Charles Southwell, who went into prison for publishing it in 1842) pursued a logical course of confuting theism, and leaving "a-theism" the negative result. It did not, in the absurd terms of common religious propaganda, "deny the existence of God." It affirmed that God was a term for an existence imagined by man in terms of his own personality and irreducible to any tenable definition. It did not even affirm that "there are no Gods"; it insisted that the onus of proof as to any God lay with the theist, who could give none compatible with his definitions.
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted May 19, 2003 07:13 PM |
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Webster's has them this way:
athe-ist: n: one who denies the existence of God.
ag-nos-tic adj: of or relating to the belief that the existence of any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.
After years of sitting in college philosophy classrooms consistently using the terms as they are defined in such places as Webster's, I now find based on Lews' post and others here) that the history of the term "atheism" clearly opens the door for some degree of confusion between the two. The above Oracle reference, at least to me, clearly resembles the second definition (agnostic).
So Lews, if this is all true, then what is the difference, if any, between an atheist and an agnostic? What is the appropriate term for a person who affirmatively denies the existence of a god? There ARE such people and I have known a few...
Since the intended meaning behind this term ("atheism") is central to the thread topic, perhaps we should turn to Khayman for clarification as to which meaning he intended when asking why "atheism" is so prevalent in on-line communities.
P.S. bort, I thought the guy who asks "Anybody want to order a pizza tonight" was referred to as a "Pantheist..."
OOOOOOOOOhhhh! (Pan intended)
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bort
Honorable
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Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted May 19, 2003 07:44 PM |
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Only the lowest form of humanity makes pan pizzas.
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Drive by posting.
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Mercy_Severity
Adventuring Hero
answer seeker
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posted May 19, 2003 09:50 PM |
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Watch your mouth, people that make pizza are true heroes. They say there are no true heroes for kids to look up to anymore, i say look to domenicos (kick ass local pizza joint)
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted May 19, 2003 11:34 PM |
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Those who make pizza are truly more akin to the divine than to the mortal. Those who make pan pizzas waste perfectly good oxygen by existing.
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Snogard
Known Hero
customised
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posted May 20, 2003 04:07 AM |
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Quote:
theist = "There is a God."
atheist = "There is no God."
agnostic = "I don't know if there is a God."
nontheist = "Anybody want to order pizza tonight?"
I think this is interesting.
A "nontheist", as bort named and defined it (I take it that he meant something more than just mere humour), in this case is someone who possesses absolutely no concept of God (I don't know if this is truly possible for someone in a "right" mind... maybe an infant?). In other words, when confronted, a "nontheist" may say, "what is a God"?
Quote:
P.S. bort, I thought the guy who asks "Anybody want to order a pizza tonight" was referred to as a "Pantheist..."
I'll say the guy was referring to himself, bort. 
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Seize The Day.
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted May 21, 2003 05:47 PM |
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Well clearly this thread has deteriorated straight to Hell. Wonder what that proves?!?!?!?
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I have menopause and a handgun. Any questions?
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Lews_Therin
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 21, 2003 06:13 PM |
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Hello Peacemaker ,
Quote:
Webster's has them this way:
athe-ist: n: one who denies the existence of God.
ag-nos-tic adj: of or relating to the belief that the existence of any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable.
The term denial makes the tail wag the dog here. Itīs the theists who deny the non-existence of a god, simply because they fail to come up with any piece of evidence. Sorry ībout my pedantry, I just canīt help it, sometimes .
According to Merriam-Webster OnLine-Dictionary, atheism is:
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
So by dictionary definition, we are both right, me saying a and you saying b.
However, the large majority of atheists, both today and in the past (Feuerbach is a good example here, as are the authors that I mentioned above), is clearly a, does not make make a final judgement about the possibility of the existence of higher beings. As we live within nature, within what we know as reality, how would we be able to gain reliable insight about the supernatural, about something that supposedly exists outside of nature?
On this question, you will have a hard time finding an intellectual atheist who doesnīt have an agnostic view.
On the other hand, atheists (unlike agnostics) are convinced that not god created human, but human created god. Even most Christians share this conviction for the most part, dismissing all the non-Christian gods as golden calves.
This is mostly based on common sense - itīs not difficult to conclusively explain religious belief without the use of metaphysics, while on the other hand, religious attempts of explanation always either lack any concretion, or lead to a large number of self-contradiction (the most popular one being the theodizee-problem, the incompatibility of an almighty, all-knowing and all-benevolent being and the world that we live in).
Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive - on the contrary, most a-views contain a mix of both, depending on what questions are asked.
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted May 21, 2003 07:06 PM |
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The human-greated-god shtick is actually now called existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre is a good place to start with that area (as you probably already know).
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Peacemaker
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Peacemaker = double entendre
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posted May 21, 2003 07:09 PM |
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Also,
Quote:
Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive - on the contrary, most a-views contain a mix of both, depending on what questions are asked.
Wouldn't this make just about everybody who's willing to discuss this topic an Agnost???
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I have menopause and a handgun. Any questions?
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Lews_Therin
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted May 21, 2003 07:34 PM |
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Quote:
The human-greated-god shtick is actually now called existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre is a good place to start with that area (as you probably already know).
Hmm, that stick is also quite the essence of Feuerbachīs writings, although the idea seems so natural to me that I suppose itīs still much older.
Quote:
Wouldn't this make just about everybody who's willing to discuss this topic an Agnost???
I think being convinced by something doesnīt necessarily mean being unwilling to discuss it. I very much like to see my convictions as subject of discussion, because this enables me to to reconsider them, and (if I find the other sideīs arguments more convincing) change them.
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