Christ/Anti-Christ

I'm Christian, but I don't believe the anti-christ is among us nor do I endorse a literal interpretation of Genesis. I'm also a little leery about fundamentalism; I fear, in some respects, it has done more harm than good.

Please remember, not all Christians are fundamentalist, evolution-hating nut-jobs.

True, I was speaking to Gnostic Atheism, or Theoretical Atheism.

"Atheism in an of itself does not offer answers to anything, because it does not claim anything. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."

First off, it does claim something or it would be a meaningless term, it claims we can not know if there is a god or not. But refusing to play by the largely accepted rules does not excuse you from the game.

Agnostic Atheists believe people can not know or determine the existence of god or an afterlife, but they do not claim to be able to prove this. Christians believe there is a god who created the universe, but they can not prove this either. What makes one unprovable belief a religious one and the other not? Whatever you think, I'm willing to bet it boils down to semantics.

As to Pascal's Wager, I did not mention god, heaven or hell. I have no illusions to my ability to pick the 'right' religion, I'm not willing to concede that anyone has, nor do I feel I (or anyone else) have the right to tell someone else their choice is certainly wrong (although I have opinions just like everyone else). Pascal's Wager also assumes a Punishment/Reward scenario for the afterlife, which I do not necessarily agree with.

Richard Dawkins "anti-Pascal wager" may work fine for those who can live without wondering why they live, or why the universe even exists, but these are some of the questions I mull over at night.

Gnostic Atheism is also used by many as an excuse for unsavory behavior, living life to the fullest at the expense of others because "I've got to get mine while I'm still alive, and if you don't like it try to beat me" type thinking. It doesn't compare in scale to the atrocities humanity has inflicted on itself in the name of various religions, but it's still worth pointing out.

And who's to judge what a 'fuller life' means for any given person? Consider a monk who spends his entire life contentedly contemplating god, raising vegetables, cooking for his brothers and dies at a ripe old age; even if there is no afterlife and he vanishes when the neurons in his brain stop firing, who's to say he would have been any happier as a globe trotting snow boarder? He chose his life and he was happy with it.

What more can any of us strive for than to be happy in the lives we make for ourselves and the things we chose to believe in?

Originally posted by Kennyweird

I'm Christian, but I don't believe the anti-christ is among us nor do I endorse a literal interpretation of Genesis. I'm also a little leery about fundamentalism; I fear, in some respects, it has done more harm than good.

Please remember, not all Christians are fundamentalist, evolution-hating nut-jobs.

yeah, thats true.
there are some reasonable christians out there, and you seem to be one of them.

Faith is the belief in things not seen, but hoped for.

This my friends, is how I try to live my life.

Originally posted by TConwell

Faith is the belief in things not seen, but hoped for.

This my friends, is how I try to live my life.

and there is no problem with that at all.
i respect that.
its just i dont want to go threw my life hoping for something that might not be there.
ill find out when i die i guess.

If you go through life hoping for something that isn't there in the end (assuming you mean nothing will happen after you die), then it wouldn't matter anyways. Just a way of life. Unless, of course, there is some sort of afterlife, but I don't know nearly enough about religion to actually get into any of that on here myself.

Zazu Yen: "First off, it does claim something or it would be a meaningless term"

Well, essentially, it is. The only reason you hear the term is because the majority are not. If a majority of people were astrologists, than the term a-astrologists would be used.

Zazu Yen: "Agnostic Atheists believe people can not know or determine the existence of god or an afterlife, but they do not claim to be able to prove this. Christians believe there is a god who created the universe, but they can not prove this either."

Agnostic Atheists claim that it is unknowable as it is outside the realm of sensation and the Universe, thus not provable, thus not knowable. The Christians are making a claim about a supernatural being existing, the Agnostic Atheists are making a claim about how knowledge is gained. The Agnostic Atheists are not saying anything about whether or not supernatural beings exist, just that we would not be able to know about them even if they did. One claim is asserting something exists without any evidence, the other claim is asserting that knowledge would not be able to be gained about it if it did based on Epistimology.

Originally posted by CoastaGuy

If you go through life hoping for something that isn't there in the end (assuming you mean nothing will happen after you die), then it wouldn't matter anyways. Just a way of life. Unless, of course, there is some sort of afterlife, but I don't know nearly enough about religion to actually get into any of that on here myself.

thats true too.
who knows, we could all just rot in ditches.
if so, then it doesnt matter what we think or hope for, lol XD

I have to get my point in real quick. See I am Christian, and proud of it. I respect other peoples views, but when one pushes their beliefs on someone or stomps on my beliefs. Then I have an issue. This already happened once to me with my English teacher who was pushing atheist views. Atheism is a religion in words. Religion is (as stated before) something one believes without proof. Therefore, Atheism is a religion. My teacher didn't understand that and pushed her views on the class.I didn't appreciate that.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Originally posted by Zazu Yen
Imagination get's a bad rep because it's assumed imagined things don't exist. But things that do exist are imagined all the time. Scientists use it, they imagine a process that could be causing the effect they see, then they set out to prove (or disprove) what they imagine is correct.

No. You collect data and then draw interpretations from said data. No imagination required. You've either been taught wrong or are lying. Nothing is stressed more in classes than to keep data separate from interpretations. Interpretations change, data lasts forever.

"Religion is (as stated before) something one believes without proof. Therefore, Atheism is a religion."

No it is not. Things like how a mountain formed have been proven and backed up with models and the like. It has been measured and modeled, thus proven. This why there is no theory for the sprouting of life. Nobody has modeled this in the lab or been able to observe it happening. You can pick up a fossil and depending on the quality of it find out a great deal about the ancient critter and date it using various isotopes.

Also before anyone says it, yes carbon dating is only accurate to around 40,000 years, that's why people use other isotopes to date rocks. Carbon dating is usually not used for anything, the media just uses the term because they're stupid and try to oversimplify things. If you really truly believe dating is all horribly wrong and a lie, then all of mathematics is wrong and 1 + 1 does not equal 2. There are many stable elements to date with.

You can't measure and model the Bible because you come out with an impossibility, which is where faith comes into play.

Originally posted by RRollergod

Religion is (as stated before) something one believes without proof. Therefore, Atheism is a religion.

There are no beliefs in Atheism, Atheism is a LACK of belief. Calling it a religion is like calling bald a hair color. It is not a religion, there is no dogma, no rituals, or any factors which would constitute as a religion. Atheism is not a religion, it's the lack thereof. Edit: Something you believe despite lack of evidence is faith, faith is a requirement of religion, but alone it does not constitute as a religion.

Well, Atheism's belief is that there is no god, so I guess that counts, aha.

[Coasterkidmwm]

It's a conclusion made by looking over the religious text(s) of your choosing, and then perhaps one day going "wait a second that sounds fishy", which eventually leads to one of the following conclusions:

1. Load of crap
2. Okay they probably exaggerated details, something was poorly translated, etc, but I still have faith in the overall message and like it. Go Jesus.

Hopefully after one of these decisions is made people shut up and keep to themselves but this can often not be the case....

[gouldy]

Originally posted by Zazu Yen

True, I was speaking to Gnostic Atheism, or Theoretical Atheism.

"Atheism in an of itself does not offer answers to anything, because it does not claim anything. Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."

First off, it does claim something or it would be a meaningless term, it claims we can not know if there is a god or not. But refusing to play by the largely accepted rules does not excuse you from the game.

Why? Why is it that we should all be expected to be following something in particular? I'm just happily getting on with my life completely refusing to be involved in any form of "religion". So why would I be banded as having a religion, you would call atheism? I just want to get on with my life, you know real life, and not get dragged down into this kind of side-tracking rubbish.

As for the notion that people who don't follow some kind of a religion therefore must have bad imagination... WHAT!? Surely it's the other way around? I don't follow what other people have decided to lay down as being their "truth", by reading someone else?????????s scribblings in a book about a whole load of made up crap that supposedly happened 2000 odd years ago. I have my OWN imagination.

Originally posted by jensen-nator

and there is no problem with that at all.
i respect that.
its just i dont want to go threw my life hoping for something that might not be there.
ill find out when i die i guess.

I can live with that as your choice my friend. Let me ask if I may: What if I am right? Would it be worth losing everything? For example, if I lived my life this certain way and I am wrong in the end I will have gained nor lossed a thing. However, if I am right, what could you lose? It is at least worth thinking about.

Religion is an outrageous assumption with no real proof, but so is the existence of everything and as a matter of fact can't prove how, why and what no matter how hard scientists smash hydrogen ions together.

Remember there is a difference in saying I believe there is a God and saying I know there is a God. Certain things can't be explained in live and might not be explained afterwards.

I'm a Christian and don't have to worry about being nothing but a random event while I'm still alive at least I believe that I have somewhere to go when my live is over for better or worse.

Just dying like a fish doesn't give me reason to live anyways. Which is probably an Emo?????????s mindset.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Originally posted by TConwell
I can live with that as your choice my friend. Let me ask if I may: What if I am right? Would it be worth losing everything?

If I understand you correctly, this is where the "person was nice in general and a good person but avoid church and religion and now must burn in hell" confusion enters the ring.

If I didn't understand you feel free to make like a Bill O'Reilly and tell me to shut up.

Dragon Fly: "Well, essentially, it is. The only reason you hear the term is because the majority are not. If a majority of people were astrologists, than the term a-astrologists would be used."

Negating something does not make the result zero unless you're negating everything. NOT 2 does not = 0, it means everything BUT 2. Also, meaning nothing and not having meaning are not the same thing. 'Zero' means nothing, it does not lack meaning itself.

Dragon Fly[cont.]: "Agnostic Atheists claim that it is unknowable as it is outside the realm of sensation and the Universe[...]"

Hmm, so by your definition an Agnostic Atheist could be a Christian (or any other religion) of good faith without contradiction, because religious faith requires belief without proof (faith), and Agnostic Atheist assert that proof can not be had anyway. But that's not quite right is it? That would be Agnostic Theism, belief in a god or gods which is admitted to be unprovable. Agnostic Atheism is the non belief in a god or gods because they are unprovable.

To my mind unfounded belief, faith again, involving god, gods or the supernatural is religious whether it be for or against. You can disagree with this, using a narrower definition of religion if you wish.


Coasterkidmwm: "You collect data and then draw interpretations from said data."

How do you draw forth interpretations without imagination?

Einstein, standing on a hill, saw two clock towers, one further away than the other. In his mind he pictured the light from the sun traveling through space, bouncing off the clocks and arriving in his retinas. He realized the light from the further tower would have to travel further, and thus his personal interpretation of the time at that location would be different than his impression of the time at the other location. From this he realize the relativity of time.

Tell me that didn't take some imagination. Oh, but you say that was an interpretation of the facts not imagination. Well it uses the same part of the brain, picturing in your mind things that are not actually visibly there, and they were only proven as facts much later. Was it imagination if he had been wrong, but interpolation because he was right?

Coasterkidmwm[cont.]: "No it is not. Things like how a mountain formed have been proven and backed up with models and the like. It has been measured and modeled, thus proven. This why there is no theory for the sprouting of life."

There are lots of theories about the sprouting of life (I outlined one), that that none of them have been proven is why they're called theories not facts. Drawing interpretations from known facts is how theories are made. Continental drift was a theory before it was a proven fact, explaining mountain ranges and many other things.

It's hard to simulate, or observe, the random interactions of free floating proteins over millions of years. This is one of the reasons why finding life under the thick ice of Europa (a moon of Jupiter) would be so cool, it could give us more insight on how we came to be here.



gouldy: "Why? Why is it that [...] I just want to get on with my life, you know real life, and not get dragged down into this kind of side-tracking rubbish."

Life is the game, we all play. And you're a Pragmatic Agnostic.

gouldy[cont.]: "As for the notion that people who don't follow some kind of a religion therefore must have bad imagination... WHAT!?"

That's not what I said, what I said was people that believe in NOTHING (Gnostic Atheists) have no imagination. And true, it doesn't take any imagination to follow a belief system that has been spoon fed to you since birth, either.

TConwell, we already talked about Pascal's Wager. Your assuming that you are believing in the correct God, and that the criteria to get into heaven is believing in God. If there is indeed a heaven, the "true" way of getting into it may very well be to not believe in God. So if an Atheist is indeed wrong, he risks no more than you do.

Even if we were to know that one religion which has heaven and hell is correct, due to them being mutually exclusive and the number of them there are, by sheer probability you should expect to wind up in hell.

Edit: Zazu Yen: "Dragon Fly[cont.]: "Agnostic Atheists claim that it is unknowable as it is outside the realm of sensation and the Universe[...]"

Hmm, so by your definition an Agnostic Atheist could be a Christian (or any other religion) of good faith without contradiction, because religious faith requires belief without proof (faith), and Agnostic Atheist assert that proof can not be had anyway. "

Believing that you can not know about God is a necessary quality of Agnostic Atheism, but I did not say that it was the only one. I said that Agnostic Atheists claim that it is unknowable as it is outside the realm of sensation and the Universe. This would be true to any Agnostic, but Agnostic Atheism is to believe that and also not believe in Gods.

Zazu Yen: "To my mind unfounded belief, faith again, involving god, gods or the supernatural is religious whether it be for or against."

Belief despite lack of evidence is faith. Faith is a necessary quality of a religion, but alone does not make a religion. Religions have rituals as well as dogma. And the Agnostic claim that gods are unknowable as they are outside of sensation and the Universe is based on Epistemology, we need to sense it to know about it, so we can not know God. Atheism is not a belief, it is the lack thereof.

Edit #2: Zazu Yen: "what I said was people that believe in NOTHING (Gnostic Atheists) have no imagination."

Gnostic Atheists believe there is no god. This does not mean they believe in nothing.

Edit #3: Zazu Yen: "that that none of them have been proven is why they're called theories not facts."

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law or a fact. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law. If there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory in Science. Laws describe things, theories explain them. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain. Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Science

Dragon Fly: "This would be true to any Agnostic, but Agnostic Atheism is to believe that and also not believe in Gods."

That's what I said, you don't believe in god or gods because they can not be proven.

Dragon Fly: "Atheism is not a belief, it is the lack thereof"

You do not believe in the supernatural because there is no proof. However you also can not prove they do not exist, lack of evidence is not proof. You believe there are no god or gods but you have no proof. So you have faith. You want to hold to a narrower definition of religion, fine, as I said I'll roll with that. You are not religious, but you are a person of faith.

Dragon Fly: "Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law or a fact. That's not how it works."

I stand corrected, my statements on theories and laws in science were wrong. However I stand by my original point, that coming up with a good theory requires imagination.

Zazu Yen: "You do not believe in the supernatural because there is no proof."

Yes.


Zazu Yen: "However you also can not prove they do not exist, lack of evidence is not proof."

Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, but that is irrelevant. This is not how science works, you can not prove a universal negative. Until evidence is brought forth in support of X, than X should not be regarded as true. We'd be unable to develop any useful picture of reality if we thought otherwise, since every claim would then have to be accepted as true or somewhat valid until it is disproved ????????? a burden which is especially difficult when dealing with supernatural claims. I do not have evidence that Fairies, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Santa Claus do not exist, but that does not mean it is unreasonable to not believe they do. The burden of proof is on the person making the assertion. A theist is someone who claims that there is a god. An atheist is someone who doesn't. Since the theist is the one making a positive claim, it is the theist's job to demonstrate that a god exists.


Zazu Yen: "You believe there are no god or gods but you have no proof. So you have faith."

I do not believe there are no god(s). I do not have faith.


Zazu Yen: "You want to hold to a narrower definition of religion, fine, as I said I'll roll with that. You are not religious, but you are a person of faith."

I am not religious, nor am I am person of faith. I do not have faith.

Dragon Fly:

Ok, I think I get the gist of this. You are defining an atheist as someone who doesn't claim there are gods, but who also doesn't explicitly claim there are not. But atheism is more commonly defined as "the doctrine or belief that there is no God" (dictionary.com), the term 'atheist' thus being usurped from it's intended meaning (probably spawning the term nontheist, the definition of which seems closer to what you appear to mean).

But then again, you did say "Gnostic Atheists believe there is no god" earlier. So is your atheism: believing there are no god(s) (strong atheism), or not claiming there are (weak atheism or nontheism)?

I think our fundamental difference is this:

While we both agree that nothing is empirically true that doesn't have verifiable proof, and that things do not necessarily not exist due to lack of evidence against, however:

You have chosen to assume that things without evidence do not exist until proven otherwise, a very logical scientific take on the universe.

I have chosen not to assume the non existence of unproven things. I don't assume they do exist, but I don't believe they don't. A not so logical non-scientific take on the universe.

[Coasterkidmwm]

God damn ya'll have managed to ramble on about absolutely nothing for a long time. Can't we just coexist?

Also Zazu, you're forgetting the whole crucial math part of physics to back up what Einstein said.

Coasterkidmwm: "God damn ya'll have managed to ramble on about absolutely nothing for a long time. Can't we just coexist?"

Yes, and we can learn things from each other too.

Coasterkidmwm : "Also Zazu, you're forgetting the whole crucial math part of physics to back up what Einstein said."

Not sure what you mean, he had to derive the theory before math could be used to test its validity.