How many here are atheists?

[Raineyrocks]

You guys are really going to debate this again??

that wasn't my intention. i just wanted to know who was and wasn't.

this debate topic is worse than debating vaccines.

~yawn~
holy rolla' Kola 

  That is true you did just ask one question but last year there was a debate that lasted forever in one of the other threads.  I can only go so far, (like the first page maybe), in a debate like this before I'm so confused that I feel like purposely making myself have an NDE and then telling everyone what I experienced.  Then again a debate would begin about if your really, really dead if you just have an NDE. 

So it doesn't bother me at all how people feel about the subject matter and what they believe, it's their lives.  My answer to your question is simple I'm not an atheist or a non atheist, I"m Rainey!

On the spiritual side of things for me though I do feel a presence of something that I could equate to God if I wanted to and I agree with Caleb about experiencing this not reading or studying it.   Like the way Native Indians had the "awareness" without having a Jehovah Indian knock on their teepee,(sp?), and give them so magazines.

  Maybe the other way around instead!

Oh yeah and also thanks a whole lot for starting this all over again!

[Caleb]

Caleb, we discussed this at Porcfest. If you have to "experience" God, then you're claiming that any discussion about him is meaningless. You had a personal experience that was sufficient evidence for your judgment that he exists. I haven't had that experience. Vitruvian hasn't had that experience. If the nature of God is something that only he can reveal to us, something that transcends languages, then you have no reason to discuss the subject. Either he will reveal himself to me or he will not. If there is some role that you play in that experience, tell me what it is.

Ok, first, I don't believe that God loves people more than others, or picks favorites, or decides to reveal himself to some and not to others. That seems deterministic to me. I think that everyone can have an experience of the divine.

"Let empiricism once become associated with religion, as hitherto, through some strange misunderstanding, it has been associated with irreligion, and I believe that a new era of religion as well as philosophy will be ready to begin... I fully believe that such an empiricism is a more natural ally than dialectics ever were, or can be, of the religious life." - William James

Can I help someone have such an experience? I don't know. I think that most people are their own biggest enemies to having such an experience. I can't tell anyone how to stop standing in their own way, because if people saw what it was they were doing to themselves, they would naturally stop. "The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves."  I have made no secret of the fact that I think that the worship of the Goddess Reason has imperiled our humanity, and is a destructive trait that damages so much that life has to offer and places us in this bubble of despair and contradiction, where if extrapolated properly life can only seem absurd and painful. And you don't have to read Sartre to come to these conclusions, because even if you can't put the despair to words or formulate the reason for the absurdity, you nonetheless will sense it intuitively. And the more that you internalize the premises, the more solidly you construct the diseased foundation, the more the natural despair will overcome you. And then, even if you have religious experiences, they will not help you, because you will not see such a thing as possible, and it will only drive you to madness. (Nietzsche?)

If there is something that you can say that will make me receptive to this experience of which you speak, then we are back to language and human logic again and you're contradicting yourself. You can't have it both ways.

No, because the receptiveness is not about God. It is about you.

[Raineyrocks]

You guys are really going to debate this again??

This discussion seems to be a little different than the rest, because it doesn't seem to be going towards, "Is there a god or is there not a god?" but to the question of "how would we know?"

I have no interest in convincing anyone that God exists; i get along just fine with many atheists, and if that's what they believe, then that is what they believe. But epistemology is always fun. 

epistemology??   See this is where I need a dictionary and the part of my brain that was probably damaged when my mother dropped me on my head even though she doesn't remember which one of us twins were dropped on our head.  My sister could whiz through this and give everybody something to think about but no, not me!

Bowing out now, good luck everyone and may God or non-God bless you all!

[Raineyrocks]

Not an evasion, though. I told you how to gain an understanding of God. I didn't tell you to take anything on faith, I told you that you must experience him.

Caleb, we discussed this at Porcfest. If you have to "experience" God, then you're claiming that any discussion about him is meaningless. You had a personal experience that was sufficient evidence for your judgment that he exists. I haven't had that experience. Vitruvian hasn't had that experience. We are discussing the existence of God and you saying we have to experience him is a cop-out. If the nature of God is something that only he can reveal to us, something that transcends languages, then you have no reason to discuss the subject. Either he will reveal himself to me or he will not. If there is some role that you play in that experience, tell me what it is. If there is something that you can say that will make me receptive to this experience of which you speak, then we are back to language and human logic again and you're contradicting yourself. You can't have it both ways.

Not only have I not had that experience, but the notion of God is full of logical contradictions to me. As soon as people start defining him in human terms, he ceases to be this omnipresent existence, and if they don't define him down into human terms, his existence is completely meaningless. Like Vitruvian said, if there is no measurable effect of his existence in my life, then he doesn't matter. If there is some measurable effect, then it can be tested in some way.

This is why, like Vitruvian, I can't even answer the question much less discuss the potential existence of someone's notion of "God" until someone gives me a clear definition of what it is they're talking about. Without that, there is nothing to discuss.

Even cold and darkness can be understood as the lack of something else and those are concepts a human can grasp and discuss. But we know what that something else is- heat and light. The example Rainey gave is meaningless in a discussion about God without a definition of God.

One more thing before I bow out.  I didn't give that example, geesh, you really think I could write something like that?  Thanks anyway!

[dalebert]

I am not an atheist. 






[wink]

You're just a little bit evil, Puke,

[kola]

You guys are really going to debate this again??

that wasn't my intention. i just wanted to know who was and wasn't.

this debate topic is worse than debating vaccines.

~yawn~
holy rolla' Kola 

  That is true you did just ask one question but last year there was a debate that lasted forever in one of the other threads.  I can only go so far, (like the first page maybe), in a debate like this before I'm so confused that I feel like purposely making myself have an NDE and then telling everyone what I experienced.  Then again a debate would begin about if your really, really dead if you just have an NDE. 

So it doesn't bother me at all how people feel about the subject matter and what they believe, it's their lives.  My answer to your question is simple I'm not an atheist or a non atheist, I"m Rainey!

On the spiritual side of things for me though I do feel a presence of something that I could equate to God if I wanted to and I agree with Caleb about experiencing this not reading or studying it.   Like the way Native Indians had the "awareness" without having a Jehovah Indian knock on their teepee,(sp?), and give them so magazines.

  Maybe the other way around instead!

Oh yeah and also thanks a whole lot for starting this all over again!

LOL!

I agree with you Rainey. That is why NA indians used the term "Creator" and better yet, "Great Mystery" or "The Great Mystery"

it didn't matter to them (and me) if it was a guy with a beard or a superman or lady with wings or a mouse or a sun or a atom...

and it was  a "mystery"...they acknowledged they didn't know what it was but a definition wasn't important. 

btw I do like the movie Zeitgeist and agree with most of it.

Kola

[Puke]

You're just a little bit evil, Puke,

[snicker]

[Raineyrocks]

You guys are really going to debate this again??

that wasn't my intention. i just wanted to know who was and wasn't.

this debate topic is worse than debating vaccines.

~yawn~
holy rolla' Kola 

  That is true you did just ask one question but last year there was a debate that lasted forever in one of the other threads.  I can only go so far, (like the first page maybe), in a debate like this before I'm so confused that I feel like purposely making myself have an NDE and then telling everyone what I experienced.  Then again a debate would begin about if your really, really dead if you just have an NDE. 

So it doesn't bother me at all how people feel about the subject matter and what they believe, it's their lives.  My answer to your question is simple I'm not an atheist or a non atheist, I"m Rainey!

On the spiritual side of things for me though I do feel a presence of something that I could equate to God if I wanted to and I agree with Caleb about experiencing this not reading or studying it.   Like the way Native Indians had the "awareness" without having a Jehovah Indian knock on their teepee,(sp?), and give them so magazines.

  Maybe the other way around instead!

Oh yeah and also thanks a whole lot for starting this all over again!

LOL!

I agree with you Rainey. That is why NA indians used the term "Creator" and better yet, "Great Mystery" or "The Great Mystery"

it didn't matter to them (and me) if it was a guy with a beard or a superman or lady with wings or a mouse or a sun or a atom...

and it was  a "mystery"...they acknowledged they didn't know what it was but a definition wasn't important. 

btw I do like the movie Zeitgeist and agree with most of it.

Kola

  I knew I could make somebody laugh before the day is over!  I never watch Zeitgeist, is it scary? 

[kola]

not scary at all. just a different look at "religion."

google Zeitgeist movie... make popcorn and watch. the first 30-45 minutes is about "religion, the rest is a hodgepodge of stuff 911, police state etc, alex jones stuff.

[kola]

Kirstie Alley has her own theories.
------------------------

Kirstie Alley Talks Scientology with Playboy Mag < cheaande > 04/28 15:18:14

PLAYBOY: Sounds like you have all the answers. Where do we go when we die?

Kirstie Alley: We just pick another body. We go to the nearest hospital where women are giving birth, find some good-looking parents and jump in. I don't think there's a rest period, though there might be a confusion period if you were killed in an accident and knocked out of your body. It would all depend on the shape you're in as a spiritual being, which is our natural state. The better the shape you're in, the less confusion. At least that would be my hope. This is just a prison planet–and here's what it takes to get out: a Get Out of Jail Free card or a Get Off of Planet Earth Free card. You should have one in your wallet or purse at all times, just in case. You know how we're all looking for the big secret in life? That's it.

[Free libertarian]

 Atheist - "one who denies the existence of god".  I don't deny the existence, but I don't believe in any of the BS religions that preach the "fear of god" either.  I think religions that feature mankind as gods best effort are contrived means of controlling people. 
  I'd have to say I don't believe in the traditional Santa Clausy but in vastly better shape God (thanks for the visual aid Lloyd).
   I'm leaning more towards seeing us all as a part of something, perhaps by design, perhaps by coincidence, still working on that thought.  Yeah maybe a little bit of the "Great Spirit" thing Kola mentions.

So, okay  I'm probably an atheist if the  God in heaven with flowing robes was the measuring stick.
Although I like a good deal of his music, I do not think Clapton is god either. 

[ReverendRyan]

Atheist - "one who denies the existence of god".

Not true.

A- (without)
theism (belief in a deity)

Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity, not necessarily the denial of the possibility of one.

Atheism tends to be divided into two philosophies, usually called weak and strong, for lack of better terms.

"Weak" atheism is just a lack of belief in the positive claims of others that a deity in fact, exists. "Strong" atheism is a claim that no god exists, a positive claim in and of itself. The difference is subtle, but when used in the context of logic and rhetoric, there's a vast difference in the two. Both are forms of atheism, because atheism is the negative belief, not the positive.

[Free libertarian]

Atheist - "one who denies the existence of god".

Not true.

A- (without)
theism (belief in a deity)

Atheism is the lack of belief in a deity, not necessarily the denial of the possibility of one.



I know you're a "Reverend" and all so I'm not going to deny your definition, I just took the one from Webster's New Dictionary, but hey I guess it all depends on what the meaning of "is", is huh?
Atheism tends to be divided into two philosophies, usually called weak and strong, for lack of better terms.

"Weak" atheism is just a lack of belief in the positive claims of others that a deity in fact, exists. "Strong" atheism is a claim that no god exists, a positive claim in and of itself. The difference is subtle, but when used in the context of logic and rhetoric, there's a vast difference in the two. Both are forms of atheism, because atheism is the negative belief, not the positive.

[dalebert]

No, because the receptiveness is not about God. It is about you.

And yet you can't offer me anything of value about how I can be more receptive other than to perhaps abandon reason, so we are back to either I have the experience or I don't. I suppose I should have someone beat me in the head until I get it because my God-given brain works too well for me to be receptive to his presence.

[ReverendRyan]

I know you're a "Reverend" and all so I'm not going to deny your definition, I just took the one from Webster's New Dictionary, but hey I guess it all depends on what the meaning of "is", is huh?

I'm going by both the Latin roots and the ways atheists self-identify.