What religion are you?

[Sako]

Re: What religion are you?

There are a few things I'd like to share, if I may , and I hope I don't offend anyone.

First, whether you believe in a teapot, a dog, a noodle monster, or the green lantern is truly your choice but saying that something DOESN'T exist is as compelling as saying something DOES. Let's remember that before I go on.

Here are my views on Religion. There is only one God, we perceive him in different ways. I've lived in many countries, not to be bragging or anything, and have seen many different religions, have had friends who believed in different God's, who had different perceptions of life, who had different ways of living, and many who didn't even want to hear the name "God". I've seen many religions not even mentioned in your pole. Before one can accuse someone though, he must respect everyone for who they are and their opinion(s), remembering that we will all have to die one day and talk for ourselves, ALSO remembering that everyone is right in their own way. This world is based on truth and lies or bad and good, 50/50, so seeing a truth in almost everything is inevitable. Next, religion isn't a light subject matter which can be talked about in any way a person fancies so respect is vital, EVEN if you are an atheist or whatever.

I believe that any religion that accuses any other religion is not my religion. Anyone who says his God is better then another God is lost already. I can prove any accuser wrong quoting their own religion. For example, tons of Christians don’t do what Jesus told them to. They don’t oblige with the religion but instead, they make the religion oblige with them. God is one, period, end of conversation. There aren't millions of God's. In different cultures, the word Demigod is significantly used but they are like Angels basically serving a higher God so that proves that there is only one God so don’t bring that excuse up.

I've seen good and bad in all religions and have realized that it’s the word RELIGION that has messed the world up. Me? My Religion? My religion is to be a good person, to be supportive, to help out as much as I can, to fight when needed, to remember that I'm not in this world to just drink six-packs and have fun all day, and to never forget that everything has a master, EVERYTHING. Guys, let's imagine for a second that God doesn't exist! Let's imagine that all we do is just wake up everyday, take a shower (some do at least), and go to school, work, or whatever. Doesn't it seem a bit pointless ? How much? How much sex, how much sleep, how much fun, how long can we just go on and then one day just die? Do you really think that's the point of this life? Eat and sleep, that's it? This world would be the saddest place ever if that was true. Anything that doesn't have a point is useless and anyone who wants to prove me wrong should be able to explain me how the mind, heart, and time work’s. If you can't, stop saying a higher power doesn't exist. Who the hell are we then? Why the hell are we here? How does nature work? How does time work? How does this universe work? You may not believe in a certain God but saying GOD DOESN'T EXIST is not equal or even close to saying he does exist because at least then, we have an answer, big or small. So many atheists don’t even want to go deep into a religion because they don’t WANT TO not because it’s wrong. If a person shuts his eyes and ears, of course he’ll think nothing exists. So many don’t take up any religion because it’s too “difficult” or strict. The right path ain’t always easy. Many go with the American dream BS, being free and sh!t. The truth is, there is no freedom in this world, get used to it. I can't stop laughing when people say God doesn't exist! It's hysterical . But like I said, I respect everyone's views and anyways, we just have a few decades to live, we'll find out soon enough!

I could go in great detail but I think that's enough. Sorry if I mixed up anything. I wrote this pretty fast, don't have much time. I’m attaching a few files, check em out. I think you’ll have a much better idea of what I’m talking about. Seriously, just take five minutes to go through them, their interesting, especially "The Chat With God" "PROOF OF GOD" and "Do Barbers Exist".

[Siggie]

Re: What religion are you?

Ugh... Moooooouse! Stark Evade addressed what you're saying too. Just because you cannot prove or disprove doesn't mean that each outcome is equiprobable. It's like Russell's giant teapot floating in outerspace that's undetectable by technology. Would you say it's as likely as not that it exists?
The ones who make the claim carry the burden of proof. It is up to the deists to prove the existence. If I made the claim about the FSM or teapot or what have you, do you think people would say "oh well, you're totally entitled to your belief and it's certainly possible. Carry on"?

And science does have something to say so long as religion makes claims that are testable (i.e. prayers being answered, miracles being performed, etc). And those hypotheses have not been supported which has made the claim even less probable.

[Anonymouse]

Re: What religion are you?

How is it you're using logic if the entire premise of your argument is that you CAN'T use logic in this debate? And there is a difference between being passionate about that which you speak of, and relying solely on "zeal and emotion". I'm quite passionate when I discuss the Armenian genocide with a denialist. Does that mean my arguments don't contain logic, or don't discredit the denialist's "proof"?

I comprehended what you said perfectly. I'm well aware of the dogma. What I'm "ranting" about is how that dogma also contradicts itself. If you can neither prove, nor disprove a god exists, how do you choose what to believe in? How can believers believe in one supernatural claim based on this clause, while disbelieving in others, even though those others are protected by the same clause? It's a simple question that I have yet to see or hear a believer answer. This is the paradigm the "can't prove or disprove god" dogma creates, and as carefully as I've explained it, you have chosen to continuously skip right over it, and repeat the dogma instead, claiming it can't be refuted based simply on you saying so (then you accuse me of being like "this is how it is because I say so"?) . I KNOW what the dogma is. Even if you wholeheartedly believe that the dogma is irrefutable, that still has NOTHING to do with eradicating the paradigm I present. So could you please address the paradigm for once (see last quoted response at the bottom of this reply)?





This is proof that you indeed do NOT understand my point. I have never said, nor claimed to know "there is no god", nor have I demanded physical proof of god. You know me better than that, Armand. You know my "Matrix world" philosophy. You can't even prove, or disprove our own existence, or the existence of anything WITHIN our existence to me. This is not about disproving the possibility of a god(s). However, you do NOT need scientific proof to lack in a belief (read: not that same as believing there is no god) for a SPECIFIC deity, religion, or divine manifesto. People do this all the time (lack belief in specific deities). For example, does anybody here believe in Osiris? Why not? His life was basically the blueprint for Christ's. Notice I haven't used a single piece of scientific evidence ANYWHERE in my argument to "disprove god". By simply analyzing how we got to this point (the automatic assumption that there is a god, and that that god is the one the culture you were born into just happens to believe in), commonsense will tell you we haven't put much thought into this whole thing, and have blindly accepted what those before us believed as fact.

In other words, an Armenian believing in Christ and Asdvadz simply because he was born into the Armenian culture is no different than a Turk believing the Armenian Genocide is a lie simply because s/he was born into the Turkish culture. Both of them rely on a lack of questioning and analyzing, and are merely a matter of "that's just the way it is" because that is what your culture accepts, believes, or passes off as truth.




I see you haven't changed your debating tactics from back in the day: Project the shortcomings of your argument onto your opponent. I've jumped around or evaded YOUR argument? I've addressed it head on and explained why that mantra fails to validate a belief in a specific deity. The premise of "you can neither prove, nor disprove god" revolves around first accepting this rhetoric, or a specific deity. My "jumping around" argument was trying to get back to the beginning of the creation and acceptance of this rhetoric. It is YOU who has jumped around the issues and contradictions I raised to that rhetoric.

OK, forget everything else in this reply for a second, and let's just try this. There had to be a point BEFORE we accepted this, right? There WAS a time before Christ, or Buddha, or Krishna, or Mohammad, or Zues, or Osiris, Ra, Mithras, etc. correct? With me so far, or are you disagreeing with this much already? If you agree there was a time before all these supernatural figures were introduced to us, let us continue. This now leaves us with the issue of when was the concept of deities, or divine beings created, and why? How did this concept even come about? Why was it accepted, and how did these people know and define who/what these deities were? Why did people stop believing in one, and accept another (at least, I don't think anyone still believes in ancient Greek and Egyptian gods)? Please, for the love of god (no pun intended), could you at least address the paradigm I'm raising in this last paragraph DIRECTLY? After all, it arises as a direct result (contradiction) of your "can't prove or disprove god" rhetoric.

All this drivel misses the point. You have conveniently ignored what I have said, engaged in mental gymnastics, pretended you are asking for something different from what you were asking earlier and you think you have a discussion?

You are just as much of an ideologue in your atheism, as the fundamentalists are in their God love. I see no difference between your zeal and theirs, despite what you say to the contrary.

We have demonstrated that the existence of God can neither be proven or disproven. If you have nothing new to bring to this point, then stop belaboring the point and ranting.

Second, if this is not your point (and I think it was although you now all of a sudden claim some other argument because you realized you cannot prove or disprove the existence of God), and your point is why is it logical to believe in God, well you are again engaging in a pointless question.

Why people believe in God or whether they should or not is a completely normative question, as opposed to a positive one.

In philosophy, normative statements affirm how things should or ought to be, how to value them, which things are good or bad, which actions are right or wrong. Normative is usually contrasted with positive (i.e. descriptive, explanatory, or constative) when describing types of theories, beliefs, or propositions. Positive statements are falsifiable statements that attempt to describe reality.

For example, "children should eat vegetables", "smoking is bad", and "those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both" are normative claims. On the other hand, "vegetables contain a relatively high proportion of vitamins", "smoking causes cancer", and "a common consequence of sacrificing liberty for security is a loss of both" are positive claims. Whether or not a statement is normative is logically independent of whether it is verified, verifiable, or popularly held.

It is only with David Hume in the 18th century that philosophers began to take cognizance of the logical difference between normative and descriptive statements and thinking. There are several schools of thought regarding the status of normative statements and whether they can be rationally discussed or defended. Among these schools are the tradition of practical reason extending from Aristotle through Kant to Habermas, which asserts that they can, and the tradition of emotivism, which maintains that they are merely expressions of emotions and have no rational content.

Normative statements and norms, as well as their meanings, are an integral part of human life. They are fundamental for prioritizing goals and organizing and planning thought, belief, emotion and action and are the basis of much ethical and political discourse.

The way in which individuals or societies define that which they consider to be appropriate - that is: to be in accordance with their (normative) standards - varies greatly between peoples and cultures. Many philosophers have searched for a source of normative values which is independent of the individual's subjective morality and consequently objective and 'true' in nature.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative

So then, after all this, it begs the question, just what is your pointless point?

Remember, logic is only a perspective. Irrationality is another. One is not better than the other. They have no value in and of themselves aside from being a part of existence. Only we can assign value to them stating that one is better than the other. I doubt you will agree with this, much less grasp this nuance.

[jgk3]

Re: What religion are you?

Dog is a word. The word "dog" in itself doesn't look like any dog in particular, as you can have a doberman or a poodle and they will be two types of dogs. Thus, there is no archetype dog that you can point to, you can only have variations of this agreed upon concept called dog. You can refer to species of dogs, dogs in general, dogs that belong to specific people, etc... But you can never talk to "dog", nor can you talk about "dog", that is, until you name something or someone as "dog".

So if you can't engage "dog" as first, second or third person unless you name someone or something as "dog" (in an effort to do away with the word's abstract nature), can you prove that "dog" exists?

And to you, Stark Evade, can you prove that "dog" doesn't exist?

Regardless of which question applies to you, how can you justify your stance?

p.s. inquiring on semantics can at times make you come off as heretical.

[Stark Evade]

Re: What religion are you?

If you can neither prove, nor disprove a god exists, how do you choose what to believe in?

They are not of equal probability. It is most reasonable and logical to not place any confidence in supernatural and untestable hypotheses. Epistemologically, the assertion in this topic is that there is a supernatural answer. This is an untestable hypothesis therefore, logically, it should be considered to have no value.

[Crimson Glow]

Re: What religion are you?

At least one of us is using logic as opposed to pure emotion that it has to be so because it has to be so. I must say, right about now, you are looking more and more like those in this thread which you adamantly opposed, who claim those who don't believe in God are not Armenian, or are going to hell. Both of you show more zeal and emotion, than logic and reason.

How is it you're using logic if the entire premise of your argument is that you CAN'T use logic in this debate? And there is a difference between being passionate about that which you speak of, and relying solely on "zeal and emotion". I'm quite passionate when I discuss the Armenian genocide with a denialist. Does that mean my arguments don't contain logic, or don't discredit the denialist's "proof"?

There is nothing in your "points" to refute. If you had stopped being so ideological about this, you would have comprehended what I had stated, that there cannot be a refutation of the "god does not exist" dogma which you are ranting about.

I comprehended what you said perfectly. I'm well aware of the dogma. What I'm "ranting" about is how that dogma also contradicts itself. If you can neither prove, nor disprove a god exists, how do you choose what to believe in? How can believers believe in one supernatural claim based on this clause, while disbelieving in others, even though those others are protected by the same clause? It's a simple question that I have yet to see or hear a believer answer. This is the paradigm the "can't prove or disprove god" dogma creates, and as carefully as I've explained it, you have chosen to continuously skip right over it, and repeat the dogma instead, claiming it can't be refuted based simply on you saying so (then you accuse me of being like "this is how it is because I say so"?) . I KNOW what the dogma is. Even if you wholeheartedly believe that the dogma is irrefutable, that still has NOTHING to do with eradicating the paradigm I present. So could you please address the paradigm for once (see last quoted response at the bottom of this reply)?

The only thing you are content with is if everyone submits to your badgering that "there is no god because there is no evidence of god because I said so because that is the way I think the criteria should be" when it has already been pointed out, you cannot use that criteria in making your assessment. You do not know that God does not exist, because knowledge is the arena of the material world based on the five senses. That which cannot be known, is ipso facto, in the realm of belief. If this is too dreadful for you to accept, much like it might be dreadful for fundamentalists to accept that there are people who do not believe in God, then you are only displaying that you are no different than those who cling and grip desperately to their cherished beliefs.

This is proof that you indeed do NOT understand my point. I have never said, nor claimed to know "there is no god", nor have I demanded physical proof of god. You know me better than that, Armand. You know my "Matrix world" philosophy. You can't even prove, or disprove our own existence, or the existence of anything WITHIN our existence to me. This is not about disproving the possibility of a god(s). However, you do NOT need scientific proof to lack in a belief (read: not that same as believing there is no god) for a SPECIFIC deity, religion, or divine manifesto. People do this all the time (lack belief in specific deities). For example, does anybody here believe in Osiris? Why not? His life was basically the blueprint for Christ's. Notice I haven't used a single piece of scientific evidence ANYWHERE in my argument to "disprove god". By simply analyzing how we got to this point (the automatic assumption that there is a god, and that that god is the one the culture you were born into just happens to believe in), commonsense will tell you we haven't put much thought into this whole thing, and have blindly accepted what those before us believed as fact.

In other words, an Armenian believing in Christ and Asdvadz simply because he was born into the Armenian culture is no different than a Turk believing the Armenian Genocide is a lie simply because s/he was born into the Turkish culture. Both of them rely on a lack of questioning and analyzing, and are merely a matter of "that's just the way it is" because that is what your culture accepts, believes, or passes off as truth.

What do you do? You jump around that and you instead resort to accusing the other side of somehow dodging the issue, ignoring the points, etc., etc., in order to have something to argue with and it is everyone else that is somehow warped and evading the issue, not you. No, definitely not you.

I see you haven't changed your debating tactics from back in the day: Project the shortcomings of your argument onto your opponent. I've jumped around or evaded YOUR argument? I've addressed it head on and explained why that mantra fails to validate a belief in a specific deity. The premise of "you can neither prove, nor disprove god" revolves around first accepting this rhetoric, or a specific deity. My "jumping around" argument was trying to get back to the beginning of the creation and acceptance of this rhetoric. It is YOU who has jumped around the issues and contradictions I raised to that rhetoric.

OK, forget everything else in this reply for a second, and let's just try this. There had to be a point BEFORE we accepted this, right? There WAS a time before Christ, or Buddha, or Krishna, or Mohammad, or Zues, or Osiris, Ra, Mithras, etc. correct? With me so far, or are you disagreeing with this much already? If you agree there was a time before all these supernatural figures were introduced to us, let us continue. This now leaves us with the issue of when was the concept of deities, or divine beings created, and why? How did this concept even come about? Why was it accepted, and how did these people know and define who/what these deities were? Why did people stop believing in one, and accept another (at least, I don't think anyone still believes in ancient Greek and Egyptian gods)? Please, for the love of god (no pun intended), could you at least address the paradigm I'm raising in this last paragraph DIRECTLY? After all, it arises as a direct result (contradiction) of your "can't prove or disprove god" rhetoric.

[Federate]

Re: What religion are you?

Atheists strike back?
---------------------------
Atheists plan ad campaign on side of London buses

LONDON – London buses have God on their side — but not for long, if atheists have their way.

The sides of some of London's red buses will soon carry ads asserting there is "probably no God," as nonbelievers fight what they say is the preferential treatment given to religion in British society.

Organizers of a campaign to raise funds for the ads said Wednesday they received more than $113,000 in donations, almost seven times their target, in the hours since they launched the project on a charity Web site. Supporters include Oxford University biologist Richard Dawkins, who donated $9,000.

The money will be used to place posters on 30 buses carrying the slogan "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." The plan was to run the ads for four weeks starting in January, but so much money has been raised that the project may be expanded.

"A lot of people say trying to organize atheists is like herding cats. The last couple of days shows that is not true," said comedy writer Ariane Sherine, who started the campaign.

While most London buses carry posters for shops or Hollywood movies, Christian churches and Muslim groups have bought bus-side ad space in the past.

Sherine came up with the idea after seeing a series of Christian posters on London buses. She said she visited the Web site promoted on one ad and found it told nonbelievers they would spend eternity in torment in hell.

"I thought it would be a really positive thing to counter that by putting forward a much happier and more upbeat advert, saying 'Don't worry, you're not going to hell,'" said Sherine, 28. "Atheists believe this is the only life we have, and we should enjoy it."

The British Humanist Association, which is administering the fundraising drive, said it had been so successful the campaign might spread to other cities including Manchester and Edinburgh.

Most Britons identify themselves as Christians, but few attend church regularly, and public figures rarely talk about their beliefs. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair was rare among politicians in speaking openly about his Christian faith.

Dawkins, author of the best-selling atheist manifesto "The God Delusion," said that religion nonetheless held a privileged position in society.

"Religious organizations have an automatic tax-free charitable status," he said. "Bishops sit in the House of Lords automatically. Religious leaders get preferential treatment on all sorts of commissions.

"This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think — and thinking is anathema to religion."

Dawkins said that as an atheist he "wasn't wild" about the ad's assertion that there was "probably" no God.

Sherine said the word was included to ensure the posters didn't breach transit advertising regulations, which stipulate ads should not offend religious people.

Few believers appeared offended by the campaign, although most doubted it would work.

More here http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081022/...in_atheist_ads

[Anonymouse]

Re: What religion are you?

God is dead.

[Pazooki]

Re: What religion are you?

Exactly what I expected

[ara87]

Re: What religion are you?

Apparently, years of Sovietization are hard to forget.

purchase the Holy Noodley Book, so you to may go to that big Spaghetti Bowl in the Sky

http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Flying-Spaghetti-Monster/dp/0812976568?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180375352&sr=8-1