Is Christianity Safe?

undertheice said:

i may be wrong, but it seems to me that there is a very definite line you must cross to travel from agnosticism to atheism. you must cease to believe that the existence of any of the gods of man is possible. however you reach that conclusion, it is that denial that defines atheism. if there is even a hint of doubt or a glimmer of belief that some sentient creature or self-aware energy may have had a hand in the creation of the cosmos, then you are still an agnostic. any true skeptic will never cross that line, it is a leap of faith that demands one abandon any suspicion that such a thing may be possible.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to explain the terminology but here it goes again.

Gnostic / Agnostic is just a modifier.

Gnostic = Know
Agnostic = Don't know

Gnostic Deist - someone who is sure there is a deity, unassociated with any particular religion.

Agnostic Deist - someone who is unsure of the existence of the deity, but leans in that direction.

Gnostic adeist - someone who is sure there is no deity.

Agnostic adeist - unsure if the deity does not exist but leans in that direcion.

And you go on to do that with theism, etc.

You don't swing from agnosticism to atheism, because agnosticism is a modifier for atheism.
You swing from agnosticism to gnosticism.


The irony of it all is that the term atheism even needs to exist. As has been put by others in the past, we don't call everyone who doesn't collect stamps "Non-stamp-collectors" (by the way, there's an excellent YouTube channel by a fellow with that very title).

Apparently I am an awoman, have an avagina, go asnowboarding, while using my apsychic powers to order my afavorite food.

.

"no evidence that gods do not exist."

Undertheice it's usually the person making the claim who has to prove the claim to be correct. There is no possible way to prove negative existence of an entity that can have any power or attribute the religionist can imagine. Russel's veritable Tea Cup In Space scenario updated for our advancement in science.

.

"isn't is odd how we can change the meaning of words just to suit our own bias." ie atheism

I completely agree. It happens so often: people using baby when they mean fetus; "without morals or ethics" when they are actually talking about "different morals or ethics".

Dawkins made a 1-7 scale with 1 being a complete religionist and 7 being a complete atheist. The Class 6 Atheists are what Oregon is referring to I believe, Dawkins defines it as a person who is agnostic only to the point that they acknowledge that deities could exist. Sometimes people who reject theism are called atheists but to me a person has to have a 100% denial of deities to be an atheist. Otherwise you're just Christopher Hitchens, the anti theist.

(If you're a class 6 watch out for the secret class 8 atheists, the Eights are hunters of the Sixes for their heretical atheist beliefs.)

.

"We can only rise above them by putting them down over time."

Oregon we will never put down religion or spiritual belief, it's hard wired into our brains. We must "know" - and in the absence of understanding superstition will take it's place. And in a lot of cases the people don't care about the truth, "these lies what we believe" is good enough for them as it is for you and I in other matters.

Nor should we ever limit people's access to religions that give comfort to the practitioner, so long as they and their religion follow the One Rule. The older I get the more I see the comfort that my religionist family and friends get from their beliefs.

The only thing we can hope for is to completely separate church and state, and that is going to take some time. An example is Turkey, 99%+ Muslim but moderately sane in a sea of Islamic insanity only because:

"Turkey is officially a secular state with no official religion since the constitutional amendment in 1924 and later strengthened in the Kemalist Ideology, alongside the Atatürk's reforms and the appliance of laïcité by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the end of 1937"

.

Well, if most of the world collected stamps, and they fought wars and tortured each other for collecting the wrong type of stamps - there would be people calling themselves non-stamp-collectors.

And, I do see a definite difference between agnostic (not sure) and atheist (sure). In your gnostic/agnostic scale agnostic can be a modifier of atheist... but those aren't the words that most people use. They use agnostic and atheist, and they use them to mean two clearly separate things.

UTI, the logical postion to hold is agnosticism - you don't know, and hold that it cannot be proven a god exists or does not exist.

I believe no god any human mind has ever conceived of exists. As far as certainty goes, I am certain of this. How? Why? Because I've never seen any evidence that says they do exist. Simple right.

This is not a form of faith. I don't have faith no gods exist in the exact same way I don't have faith that Santa Claus exists. You say no god has ever been "disproven" - to that I say you have to prove it first. There is no way to "disprove" anything without it having been confirmed in reality to begin with.

Dr. Greenz, try again.

morgentaler said:

I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to explain the terminology but here it goes again.

Click to expand...

when dealing with the existence of a deity there is no know/not know, there is only believe/doubt. your belief may be so strong that you convince yourself that you know one way of the other, but there is no proof in either direction and that knowledge is false.

PadawanBater said:

the logical position to hold is agnosticism

Click to expand...

the realm of religions and gods is no place for logic. logic demands evidence and facts and the rarefied air of that realm cannot support such mundane toys. if one is to make any choice, it must be conscience and imagination that show the way. though it may be rational to avoid making such a choice, some of us feel that a decision is needed.

still sounds to me like you have alot of FAITH in your belief in your skepticism of the existance of any god.

.

Thomas Jefferson - [1743-1826] 3rd American president, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat.

"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise."

.

I didn't say atheist cowards, but yeah, atheist are cowards, and Cowards believe in God.

Go ahead and comprehend that 1 too while you're at it. (NOT)
Please, Just hit the ignore button. Monkey!!

morgentaler said:

Cowardly is walking around proclaiming your belief in Sky Captain Jesus as eternal fire insurance.

Cowardly is standing up in the pulpit and political chambers as a Christian attacking the immorality of single parents and gays, only to be caught out in a mens room or a parked car with a prostitute's cock in your mouth.

Cowardly is teaching children if they don't follow the bible they will burn in hell.

Cowardly is using the term "atheist coward" whenever you don't have an actual argument to present because you're a rambling idiot.

Click to expand...

PadawanBater said:

UTI, the logical postion to hold is agnosticism - you don't know, and hold that it cannot be proven a god exists or does not exist.

I believe no god any human mind has ever conceived of exists. As far as certainty goes, I am certain of this. How? Why? Because I've never seen any evidence that says they do exist. Simple right.

This is not a form of faith. I don't have faith no gods exist in the exact same way I don't have faith that Santa Claus exists. You say no god has ever been "disproven" - to that I say you have to prove it first. There is no way to "disprove" anything without it having been confirmed in reality to begin with.

Dr. Greenz, try again.

Click to expand...

Good day to you Padwan. I think this is one of the most intelligent things I've seen anybody write in this thread yet. I've always said that a finite mind cannot conceive, and I mean really conceive, the infinite. Our minds just don't have the capacity for this type of thought. It's rather simple to conceptualize but we can't imagine something that has no beginning and no end. It's like the white beard and flowing robe of a powerful, yet benevolent man concept of god. Mosts religious folk don't even buy that image of god. If there is a god, there is no way we can conceive what IT is or what it looks like.

Drgreenz said:

still sounds to me like you have alot of FAITH in your belief in your skepticism of the existance of any god.

Click to expand...

I said this very thing to an atheist on here (can't remember who) and they vehemently denied that there was any FAITH involved here. I said if you can't prove it one way or another you must have FAITH that your position is correct, no?

Leothwyn said:

Well, if most of the world collected stamps, and they fought wars and tortured each other for collecting the wrong type of stamps - there would be people calling themselves non-stamp-collectors.

And, I do see a definite difference between agnostic (not sure) and atheist (sure). In your gnostic/agnostic scale agnostic can be a modifier of atheist... but those aren't the words that most people use. They use agnostic and atheist, and they use them to mean two clearly separate things.

Click to expand...

true dat!!! as of today i am an official "non-stamp collector".

yellowrain53 said:

true dat!!! as of today i am an official "non-stamp collector".

Click to expand...

Do you mind if I check out your "Non-stamp collection"?

doc111 said:

Do you mind if I check out your "Non-stamp collection"?

Click to expand...

lol. whats mine is yours.

yellowrain53 said:

lol. whats mine is yours.

Click to expand...

Likewise my friend.

doc111 said:

Do you mind if I check out your "Non-stamp collection"?

Click to expand...

Here's mine http://www.youtube.com/user/NonStampCollector

morgentaler said:

I'm not sure how many times I'm going to have to explain the terminology but here it goes again.

Gnostic / Agnostic is just a modifier.

Gnostic = Know
Agnostic = Don't know

Gnostic Deist - someone who is sure there is a deity, unassociated with any particular religion.

Agnostic Deist - someone who is unsure of the existence of the deity, but leans in that direction.

Gnostic adeist - someone who is sure there is no deity.

Agnostic adeist - unsure if the deity does not exist but leans in that direcion.

And you go on to do that with theism, etc.

You don't swing from agnosticism to atheism, because agnosticism is a modifier for atheism.
You swing from agnosticism to gnosticism.


The irony of it all is that the term atheism even needs to exist. As has been put by others in the past, we don't call everyone who doesn't collect stamps "Non-stamp-collectors" (by the way, there's an excellent YouTube channel by a fellow with that very title).

Apparently I am an awoman, have an avagina, go asnowboarding, while using my apsychic powers to order my afavorite food.

Click to expand...

I so wish people would understand that agnosticism is not some middle ground between atheism and theism. I wonder where that idea started. It is downright confusing to talk to people when they misuse a term like that, especially when they apply it to themselves.

I think we should adopt the Dawkins' spectrum of theistic probability:
Dawkins posits that "the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other." He goes on to propose a continuous "spectrum of probabilities" between two extremes of opposite certainty, which can be represented by seven "milestones". Dawkins suggests definitive statements to summarize one's place along the spectrum of theistic probability. These "milestones" are:[2]

1. Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, 'I do not believe, I know.'
2. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. 'I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.'
3. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. 'I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.'
4. Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. 'God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.'
5. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. 'I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be sceptical.'
6. Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. 'I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.'
7. Strong atheist. 'I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung "knows" there is one.'

Dawkins notes that he would be "surprised to meet many people in category 7." Dawkins calls himself "about a 6, but leaning towards 7 — I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden."


"As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods."
—Bertrand Russell, Collected Papers, vol. 11, p. 91

undertheice said:

isn't is odd how we can change the meaning of words just to suit our own bias. i'm sorry, but a simple perusal of webster's or any other dictionary that strikes your fancy will give you adequate definitions of both atheism and agnosticism and i think you'll find that neither of them has the slightest thing to do with fighting anything. all you are describing is your own anti-religious fanaticism or, more specifically, your hatred of the abrahamic creeds.

Click to expand...

Wrong. Language evolves also as is evidenced by Wikipedia.

I give you the proper meaning today as described by many athiests including myself, I could care less what "most" people think or dictionary definitions of this particular word because most people don't get it at all and have no business trying to define it, how could you expect them to define it properly they can't because that requires agreement and there is no agreement even among atheists themselves.

Wiki does say though further down:
"Theoretical atheism

Further information: Existence of God, Evolutionary origin of religions, and Evolutionary psychology of religion
Theoretical (or theoric) atheism explicitly posits arguments against the existence of gods."

I am not one of the atheists who believes there is any god or any chance for any god just to set the record straight, and I find the term theoretical atheist to be the dumbest thing I've stumbled across in a while.

Brazko said:

I didn't say atheist cowards, but yeah, atheist are cowards, and Cowards believe in God.

Go ahead and comprehend that 1 too while you're at it. (NOT)
Please, Just hit the ignore button. Monkey!!

Click to expand...

Just when you thought he had nothing left to say, he shows up and says nothing again.

morgentaler said:

Just when you thought he had nothing left to say, he shows up and says nothing again.

Click to expand...

lmfao



OK, so howbout this then...

Apparently, as evident by the poll, Christianity is dangerous, in most of our opinions. Now, what do you guys think it is that makes the followers think it's all fluffy bunnies? Most of them say they read the bible, the most outspoken ones anyway, the ones who respond to these threads, but it seems like they just cherry pick the stuff they hear in the mainstream and try to find some way to justify the other stuff they don't when one of us brings it up, ex. slavery, genocide. It's become apparent to me that if you're working with any kind of "absolute", like how God is always right, always best, always just, ect... then the morality is no longer based on the consequences of the action, it's based on the person (or in this case, God) performing the action. God, to these peoples minds, can do no wrong. Nothing God does is ever wrong, because whatever God does is always right and always just... Circular to the rational mind, but logical to the believer...

It's sort of like evolution... There is so much evidence staring people right in the face, but they choose not to accept it. With religion, it's exactly the opposite, there's not a shred of evidence and they base their entire life on it...