The Unbelievers

Thithicus said:
No, it is an absence of belief due to lack of evidence. The burden of proof rests on YOU and others making the claim. I won't hold my breath.
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its a fucking assertion and if you can't prove there is no god then you're in no different position than I am......admit you take your position based upon belief in the absence of evidence or stand forever convicted of ignorance.....
 
Thithicus said:
No, it is an absence of belief due to lack of evidence. The burden of proof rests on YOU and others making the claim. I won't hold my breath.
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You see....I don't need to prove my faith. I don't give a shit what you believe... I am totally fine with you being an atheist.

Heck, the reason I am a progressive is because of my faith....I realize that there are some aspects that fly in the face of my religion, but most of those items come down to personal choice... you can get an abortion or not. You can be homosexual or not(although I don't believe it's a choice for most).....for that reason, I don't rail against them like my Conservative brethren do.
 
Steelplate said:
You see....I don't need to prove my faith. I don't give a shit what you believe... I am totally fine with you being an atheist.

Heck, the reason I am a progressive is because of my faith....I realize that there are some aspects that fly in the face of my religion, but most of those items come down to personal choice... you can get an abortion or not. You can be homosexual or not(although I don't believe it's a choice for most).....for that reason, I don't rail against them like my Conservative brethren do.
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I'd hardly call a religious capitalist "progressive".

The very idea that we have masters within the divinity that we must obey is an idea propagated by institutions trying to exercise control over the public. It serves only to crush individuality by forcing us into moral and ethical guidelines set by others. The Bible, the Torah, the Qur'an, Buddhist and Hindi texts, these fatuous story books present needless rules and predetermined morals, which not only inhibit creativity, but collapse under the complexities of real situations. And the religions' tendency to exert their will over politics and society is heinous, at best.

As for capitalism. It was a good idea initially, but failed miserably shortly after that, using elements from the left - the social welfare system and central economic planning - to give it longevity. But it still exists on a large scale today, with all it's brutal elements. With it's deep rooted history of state and capitalist oppression, one can't look at it in any kind of positive light.

Steel, to call you progressive is like calling Kropotkin a nationalist, or Franco an anarchist.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
one: I have never started a thread here regarding my beliefs or any one elses....
two: I only discuss Christianity when a) someone says something really stupid about it which needs correcting, or b) in answer to a specific question.....



you started a thread about two people in a video promoting what they believed.......if they were Christians they would have been tele-evangelists.........the parallel was unavoidable.....

and, you said something stupid about Christianity....I corrected you.....that covers one and two above.....
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Is there ANYTHING in the tenets of any deistic faith which is not stupid?
 
Steelplate said:
And some of us don't? I wasn't just referring to them....I was also referring to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians too.

Why can't we all just believe what we believe and allow others to do the same? All of us.
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Because those who 'believe' in the fiction do not keep it to themselves. They invade the privacy of others to denigrate and insult, they insist on having their claptrap taught to children in and out of schools and they become so passionate when in defence of their nonsense that too many of them turn to violence.
That is why we should not simply permit the existence of fiction based faiths in society.
I know we enjoy our freedoms, but am I permitted to enjoy my life, unhindered in the pursuit of happiness when loonies insist on knocking on my door and refuse to take their nonsense away?
If you look at the misguided passion of many muslims and simply change the name to 'christians' you might begin to understand.
 
Superfreak said:
So what is the 'reason' behind atheism. Explain it to us. Do you understand how nature works? Why we were able to evolve?

There are so many things we cannot explain, it is rather silly to assume that you know for sure there is no higher being controlling us. You assume that there is not, mainly because the religions depiction/stories about God have so many contradictions and holes in them. Yet when you look, there is a consistency in many of the religions in terms of what the stories are trying to convey. You fail to realize that it could be that mankind simply lacks the capacity to comprehend the message the higher being is trying to communicate to us. Similar to how we try to communicate with lower beings. Insisting that there cannot be a God, because of 'reason' is comical to me. There is too much unknown in the universe for mankind to be that arrogant.
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Classic! LOL. We don't understand so god did it. Bloody brilliant!
 
PostmodernProphet said:
correction.....atheists have no brains whatsoever.....they do in fact believe there are no deities.....
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Belief is an acceptance as true of the unproven. Atheists do not 'believe'. Atheists assess empirical evidence and either accept or reject based on that. If you can supply actual evidence of the existence of a deity - any deity, thor, zeus, god, allah - then we can look at that evidence and come to our own resonable conclusions.
 
Libertad! said:
I'd hardly call a religious capitalist "progressive".

The very idea that we have masters within the divinity that we must obey is an idea propagated by institutions trying to exercise control over the public. It serves only to crush individuality by forcing us into moral and ethical guidelines set by others. The Bible, the Torah, the Qur'an, Buddhist and Hindi texts, these fatuous story books present needless rules and predetermined morals, which not only inhibit creativity, but collapse under the complexities of real situations. And the religions' tendency to exert their will over politics and society is heinous, at best.

As for capitalism. It was a good idea initially, but failed miserably shortly after that, using elements from the left - the social welfare system and central economic planning - to give it longevity. But it still exists on a large scale today, with all it's brutal elements. With it's deep rooted history of state and capitalist oppression, one can't look at it in any kind of positive light.

Steel, to call you progressive is like calling Kropotkin a nationalist, or Franco an anarchist.
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Well fuck then....I guess my opinion doesn't matter. I feel like a progressive.... I support just about every progressive item....pro-choice?....check....gay rights?.....check....Reasonable gun control?....check.... worker's rights?....check....ending corporatism?....check....regulating the banking sector?....check....Making Health Care and Education nonprofit entities that serve the people of this country instead if their pocketbooks?....check.

Now....I may not be an "all in" kind of guy like you...but I sure as hell am not a conservative.

And as far as my religion goes? That's my prerogative, my choice and my belief.

I see that absolutism isn't just for right wingers.
 
PostmodernProphet said:
lol, only if the your original analogy is as well.....
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A nonbelief is no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby. That is a perfectly viable analogy.

Denying the existance of stamps and denying people access to a post office is not the same analogy. First of all, stamps can be shown to exist. Second of all, the "denying people access..." part is simply nonsense.
 
WinterBorn said:
A nonbelief is no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby. That is a perfectly viable analogy.

Denying the existance of stamps and denying people access to a post office is not the same analogy. First of all, stamps can be shown to exist. Second of all, the "denying people access..." part is simply nonsense.
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belief that no deity exists is in fact a positive assertion.....you can pretend otherwise all you want, but won't change that.....
 
Steelplate said:
Well fuck then....I guess my opinion doesn't matter. I feel like a progressive.... I support just about every progressive item....pro-choice?....check....gay rights?.....check....Reasonable gun control?....check.... worker's rights?....check....ending corporatism?....check....regulating the banking sector?....check....Making Health Care and Education nonprofit entities that serve the people of this country instead if their pocketbooks?....check.

Now....I may not be an "all in" kind of guy like you...but I sure as hell am not a conservative.

And as far as my religion goes? That's my prerogative, my choice and my belief.

I see that absolutism isn't just for right wingers.
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Haha, to call me an absolutist, or all in... It's just that I enjoy my place on the fringe left. The mainstream of American politics is dull, I much prefer the margins. But I hope you can excuse the rhetoric of that last post.

In any case, it seems you're a socially liberal Keynesian. Not exactly a progressive, by modern standards. The implication of that term is someone who wants a radical shift from a respective country's policy norms - time banks, nationalization/collectivization, carbon taxes, large scale decentralization, establishment of communes, so on.

And it doesn't matter whiter your religion is your own decision, it's still anti-progressive.
 
WinterBorn said:
Indeed it is. But not every positive assertion is a religion or religious belief.
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true enough.....but when I posted that I was thinking about the claim that atheism is nothing more than disbelief.....disbelief would be agnosticism.......atheism is more......it is an active belief and it certainly qualifies for the modern definitions of the sociological phenomena known as "religion".......perhaps the reason it didn't earlier was the fact that until forty or so years ago people didn't dare admit they were atheists.....there wasn't much "social" involved....
 
PostmodernProphet said:
true enough.....but when I posted that I was thinking about the claim that atheism is nothing more than disbelief.....disbelief would be agnosticism.......atheism is more......it is an active belief and it certainly qualifies for the modern definitions of the sociological phenomena known as "religion".......perhaps the reason it didn't earlier was the fact that until forty or so years ago people didn't dare admit they were atheists.....there wasn't much "social" involved....
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You simply do not understand. I cannot believe that your lack of understanding is willful so must conclude that it is reached through ignorance. You cannot use the word 'belief' to describe a philosophy that has no belief. belief is the acceptance of the unproven as if it was fact. Belief in Jesus as the son of god, belief that Superman can really fly. Atheists cannot be described by using any part of the meaning of belief or 'to believe' or the adjective or adverb that make up the family. most other people can accept that, why can't you?
 
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