Nep2nes said:

i'm always warm and gooey inside. aren't we all?

tackam said:

Hmmm... interesting point. But if we are incapable of ever knowing what the absolute truths are, how can we define that absolute truths exist? It's all about perspectives. We are incapable of knowing the absolute truth, so from our perspective there is no absolute truth.

Which in and of itself is not absolutely true. That's what makes it so weird!

Excuse my rantings, I'm still going through my Philosophy courses.

scotty1014 said:

Hey, you're the one who calls yourself an atheist, not an agnostic but an atheist, and you even add, "through and through." By your own definition, doesn't that make you arrogant? Personally, I don't see anything wrong with people believing they have it all figured out regarding certain things, especially considering the alternative. And if absolute truth and the existence of God is possible, why dismiss it so easily? Or do you have it all figured out already?

AlfofMelmak said:

I have to go with this one

Hi my name is (insert name here) and I am an agnostethist atheostic.


Of course there are absolute truths but of course they all depend on the absolute question.

Im ATHEIST===> Laveyan Satanist r atheists...

How can a member of Lavey's COS be an atheist? Doesn't it go against your religion?

Jasziah said:

No, its isnt against my philosophy (not religion) becuz we dont believe in Satan as entity. We believe that we r our God, Satan and our redimeer...

I'm an egoist, does that count???



I'm a non-believer sign me up

I beleive in god... I just dont believe in a particular religion...unless you count...

The Force

DCM

I can't been an atheist.

I realy did witness Divinity at a very early age for the first time. Then I was too little girl to understand what people went talking about. I did witness, but I don't belong to a religieus community, I do walk alone, because those experiences I have and have had makes me think sometimes 'diffrent' and I could sound radical in my own thing and for other people crazy or something stange.

Agnostic.

God, yay.
Religion, yuck.

The closest i come to defining my beliefs is agnostic.
I don't deny the existence of God or Allah or Jehovah, etc, but i don't believe anyone can prove their existence either. I truly believe God is a man made entity or feeling, but don't condemn the belief in God or that feeling. In fact, i think i've felt it myself, but that could've been something i ate.

Many people have found happiness by believing in a god, while many attrocities have been committed in the name of these gods. Seems too much like rooting for a football team to me.

I haven't studied Buddhism enough, but i find it the least threatening, as they don't worship a god, but rather follow the teachings of Buddha-who was a human, never a deity- and aspire to be better human beings, regardless of their beliefs. I could be wrong, but that's how i enterpret it.

peace.

dcm said:

My aunt, who's a born again nutcase, told me once that George Lucas was trying to create a cult with the Star Wars movie, via 'the Force'. Something i think she heard at church i guess.
I happen to think it's a metaphor for God.

mrchristian said:

Hi Mr. Christian!

I agree with you 100%! George Lucas was on Public Television here when Ep2 came out and he had a lengthy discussion on his "Force" theory and how it relates to religious deities and his views on religion... VERY interesting!

I know that when I was trapped in the JW Cult as a child, my mom wouldnt let me watch any Star Wars movies because she thought the movies were "demonized"(one of their buzzwords for anything not religious)

I dont know about a "cult" but I did read that The Force is an actual "religion" in some countries now!

Pretty amazing that people take a movie and go overboard! I read what one of my fellow orgers said about burying the Star Wars Trilogy in the sand and if someone found it and could watch it after 300 or so years, how would it be interpreted!

Very interesting!

DCM


[This message was edited Tue Sep 24 10:21:17 PDT 2002 by dcm]

atheist/agnostic

I'm also a bit of a drunk
[This message was edited Tue Sep 24 10:46:02 PDT 2002 by xenon]

IceNine said:

What's the point of the thread again?

I'm agnostic by definition I suppose although I totally reject the bible (What an arrogant title "The Book") as any source of fact or truth.

Reject creationist junk like Adam and Eve first humans when evolution accounts for all life. Not to mention the full universe aside from Earth... why would this "god" have any alliegiances to humans above other life forms?

Where does the cold, soul-less, overly-scientific, spirit-less stereotype of all agnostics/atheists come from?

It's so mis-applied and I sometimes hesitate in using the titles for being seen as such.

AzureStar said:

Both you and "A Dumbass OR Another" know what the point of this thread was!

...
[This message was edited Tue Sep 24 11:45:19 PDT 2002 by IceNine]

2the9s said:

...that's from the Ten Commandments for dyslexics, 2the9s...
[This message was edited Tue Sep 24 11:28:45 PDT 2002 by tommyalma]

Jasziah said:

Hey, the point of true faith is that you don't have anything figured out, and that you rely on God, or your respective higher power, for guidance.

Conversely, calling yourself an atheist means that you think you have the "God or no God" argument aaall figured out, right? Play fair.

Oh, and for the discussion, break the word down: "a," meaning "not," and "gnostic," meaning "having a belief." Meaning one who has not a belief. Conversely, "a" meaning "not," and "theist," a person who believes in God.
[This message was edited Tue Sep 24 11:34:53 PDT 2002 by tommyalma]

dcm said:

Hi DCM!!
...if they dug it up 300 yrs from now, they'd probably say the same thing i do: "Pretty good movies...and damn that Princess Leah was hot in Return of the Jedi"

Oh and i read something recently about a census in Austrailia where about 25-30% of people who filled out the census put "The Force" under "religion."
I think it pissed off some officials because they're supposed to recognize any religion if over 20% of the pop says so. True story.
[This message was edited Tue Sep 24 12:43:59 PDT 2002 by mrchristian]

IceNine said:

I missed it then. Hmmm... how many are there and what are you going to do with this information?

savoirfaire said:

Philosophy major, right here!

I think the way to get your mind around this is to ask, if I remove the existence of myself, and perhaps other conscious observers, from the universe, would there be a definate state of things? If humans are the only conscious beings in the universe, and we nuke ourselves out of existence, will the physical laws of the universe cease to be the same? I think not; I doubt that our observation actually makes the universe what it is (except in our heads). So, I think there are probably truths, even though we can't know what they are (ie. we can't know what the physical laws of the universe are like except in the way that we are able to think of them).

Make any sense?

Doves,
Mel!ssa

tackam said:

That's been my own position for a long time and one of the reasons I became an atheist. Can you imagine the first humans trying to make sense of the world? We are hardwired to interpret and assign meaning. The fact some form of God has emerged in every society is often cited by theists as a proof or indication that people have always felt God's presence, but I definitely see it otherwise. Especially in light of these Gods' supposed manifestations, which are usually treated as fact by, at the very least, the fundamentalists of every religion that ever was. From a statiscal point of view, that means that out of your own faith, 99.999 % of all the so called sacred events that were presented as the proof of some God's existence were false or misinterpreted.

You are supposed to believe that it's just your own faith that got it right and that somehow worships the right God, even though so many religions and cults made or are making the same claim with equal conviction. How's that supposed to make you feel secure that what you believe isn't yet more constructs to make sense of your world?

AzureStar said:

I just wanted to see how many of us on here were non-believers...

Just for fun... the information will not be sold to Billy Graham or anything, so you can come out and admit that you really don't believe in god.

IceNine said:

Oh, see... you know that I believe in God. I didn't for a number of years, then I wasn't sure, and now I do...

Personally, I don't think it matters what anyone believes, as I believe that God is all loving and would not damn anyone to hell for any reason. I believe that hell is here on earth. So, for me, it's whatever gets you by... if you have faith and believe, and that is what helps you, and in your heart you have faith... great! If you don't believe... there's nothing wrong with that either. What I don't believe in is fear of God or anyone telling another what is right and what to believe. I also don't follow any religion... I just have faith in God and that is all I need, and it is for personal reasons that I do. Not anyone really "knows"... it is impossible to "know", as I said, I think it's whatever helps you along and, more importantly, it is what you feel. I have struggled with this for many years... and I really don't think about it much. I just live. Period.

So... hi.

'..GOD told me to be an athiest, quite naturally i rebelled...

-some guy in the chatroom several months ago about 3 a.m...

IceNine said:

Count me in! I guess I'm a former atheist turned agnostic. I never used to like the indecisive sound of agnosticism, but after some needed humilation that comes with age, one starts to accept a sense of mystery in life.

Also, those of us who don't have a religion really ought to have a philosophy...why leave your thinking completely up to chance when you can still live by practical principles? Mine's Objectivism.

Antagonistic.