Ch4otik wrote:exactly as it is presented here and what the general public as well as scholars define it as and as oh so very slightly elaborated on in my post where i say atheism is a religion.
essentially. webster's fourth definition: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.
Ch4otik wrote:faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, concept or thing. it is believed to be derived from the latin fidem or fides, which means trust.
Yes, it is true that in a theological context, faith is the belief in the supernatural, a transcendent reality or Supreme Being.
However, if you stick to the base definition, without attachment to the divine, then for atheism, it's belief and trust is in the statement/concept that there is no god. a disbelief in the existence of a deity means a belief in the nonexistence of a deity.
p.s. L is too cool.
Burningwolf wrote:Religion a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. ~ Dictionary.com
Atheist deny the existence of a god, BUT it does not answer the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe...
Ch4otik wrote:Burningwolf wrote:Religion a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. ~ Dictionary.com
Atheist deny the existence of a god, BUT it does not answer the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe...
from my understanding. and please correct me if i'm wrong. i'm more than willing to learn.
atheism's belief concerning the cause: whatever it is, it does not involve god
atheism's belief concerning the nature: it is simply nature.
atheism's belief concerning the purpose: what purpose. you're nothing more than the product of your environment and natural laws. to say you have a purpose is also a product of this.
all i'm saying is. atheism has a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, whatever they may be. and usually and often do not mean always.Spoiler!
Ch4otik wrote:from my understanding. and please correct me if i'm wrong. i'm more than willing to learn.
atheism's belief concerning the cause: whatever it is, it does not involve god
atheism's belief concerning the nature: it is simply nature.
atheism's belief concerning the purpose: what purpose. you're nothing more than the product of your environment and natural laws. to say you have a purpose is also a product of this.
all i'm saying is. atheism has a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, whatever they may be. and usually and often do not mean always.Spoiler!
strangelove wrote:Atheism is as much a belief system as not believing in unicorns is a belief, and there aren't many a-unicornists. It is the absence of belief in a deity (though, that's a somewhat narrow definition of the term). Whatever other ideas an atheist lives by are not the result of atheism, but their own personal ideologies.
Dbett5 wrote:lol at the nerd rage from someone saying they believe in God, have whatever beliefs as long as it doesnt involve hurting anyone ( although i hate that homophobic bullshit christians do)
Zing wrote:If atheism was a religion, then what is not a religion?
Ch4otik wrote:lolol. panraider. you have a way with words. simplifying everything.
collecting stamps is not a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. it is a hobby. or not. but not a religion.
however, if in the strangest of ways it evolves into a state where it does have a set of beliefs concerning the aforementioned, then yes. collecting or not collect stamps is a religion.
Ch4otik wrote:atheism has a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, whatever they may be. and usually and often do not mean always.Spoiler!
Pan_Raider(`_´) wrote:religious people place their faith in metaphysical, supernatural,holy, infallible objects, refusing to question them or change anything about them (unless it is to their liking).
they say:
"we know there is a god, you'll have prove that he isn't there so we stop believing in him"
on the other hand of course ...athiests believe in something,
but when we talk about their "faith", we talk about faith in (mostly)physically applicable,empirical evidence, scientific facts which they choose to challenge and question and have no problem changing once they can prove that it is different.
they say:
"we know there is no god, you'll have prove that he is there so we start believing in him"
Atheists are spiritual people at most. The only thing connecting them to religion in that sense is the fact that they're against it.
are wrong.holy, infallible objects, refusing to question them or change anything about them (unless it is to their liking).
choose to challenge and question and have no problem changing once they can prove that it is different.
Gaigemasta wrote:and here I though GD was safe from the kind of threads
Guess not, might as well join in though
ALLAH IS ALL!, KILL ALL WHO DONT BELIEVE IN ALLAH LALALALALALALALALALALALALA
Stress wrote:No atheist can really offer a rigorous explanation / definition of who he is and what he believes in.
Stress wrote:When you live only by your own ideology, and only consider of real value the experiences you have gathered yourself, you are making yourself your own God
Stress wrote:When we talk about 'Atheism', doesn't the concept feel a little bit weak? We define a whole way of living by the things it is not, rather than the things it actually is.
I might be rehashing other people's arguments here, I'm sorry if I do. I can't be bothered to look for such discussions, and participate in them, if I don't happen to stumble across them in familiar places, like SRF is.
So, what an atheist does is detach himself from the idea of 'God', and any possibly associated ideologies. He lives his life by his own principles, and, generally, using heuristic approaches to the problems he is confronted with. Read that through your mind a couple of times.
Quite often, atheists accuse religious people - especially Christians - of using circular logic to 'prove' their points. e.g.: "The Bible is the Word of God because in the Bible, it says, that God inspired the Bible", etc. There is no point in elaborating here, plenty of examples can be found.
But aren't atheists guilty of the same mistake, but on a different, more fundamental level? Their whole existence is based on an ideological self-perpetuation, which, however, can not have a certain accurate foundation. A Christian is God's Child, a muslim is Allah's servant, a Buddhist is a follower of Buddha. An atheist is nothing but himself. No atheist can really offer a rigorous explanation / definition of who he is and what he believes in.
When you live only by your own ideology, and only consider of real value the experiences you have gathered yourself, you are making yourself your own God, in a sense. There's the circular reasoning, again.
I might lack the eloquence needed to elaborate on this topic. It is 4 A.M. here. However, I hope that what I say is understandable, and that it makes at least some sense.
When you define things by what they are not, you run into all sorts of problems. By the logic atheists so vigorously advocate, they should judge themselves also.
When you live only by your own ideology, and only consider of real value the experiences you have gathered yourself, you are making yourself your own God, in a sense. There's the circular reasoning, again
strangelove wrote:I'd say it's more of a linguistics or semantics issue than anything. The term or label of "atheist" is one that really shouldn't even exist in the first place, but any other explanation of people who do not follow any religion would just be exhaustive.
they can. and it varies by much ground from individual to individual.
other than that. it's whatever. when my religion stops working for me, i'll find something else. but it has worked so far. i follow wherever the evidence leads me, whether it is empirical or based on personal experience.
the end.
Zing wrote:UnbeatableDevil wrote:Just because you try paraphrase it does not mean you know shit about what it means
Okay? Enlighten me
