Religions of Southperry

I believe one of the core problems here is our need to put a label to everything and anything.

Totally agree.

Agnostic Atheist.

I'm pretty bored of religion and religious arguments, so I tend to keep to myself.

I really don't even care whether Atheism is a religion or not. It's a non-issue because it totally misses the point of Atheism and nags on a gritty detail.

Right? I consider that a very loose form of a belief system.

I think you're mistaking belief with cultural attitude. They're not the same thing.

In my view, many people who identify as Christians are hypocrites who have gotten sucked into the exact things that Christ taught them to not, i.e. power and money. Or they had no intention of ever following it but see it as a great opportunity to take advantage of. Nobody should be killed and it justified with Christianity, as that kinda goes against the whole idea of loving and not judging other people... but it happens, and has happened far too many times. The religion itself isn't the problem, it is the *people*.

Wow completely this. I find it extremely ironic that Christ, who was a Jew and also a Rabbi, became the figurehead of a religion who has had tendencies to practice the opposite of what he taught. Funny stuff.

I really haven't seen anyone really mention Judaism, so I'll just throw my thoughts into the discussion. I like Judaism more for its culture and heritage than for the actual religious aspects. Some dude in the sky sent some plagues down on Egypt and parted a sea for the Jews? No thanks, not really buying it. On the other hand, doing mitzvah (essentially good deeds) and helping the poor/needy while respecting and loving your family are some pretty good teachings to pass around. Additionally loving or accepting people of other cultures/religions equally sounds good to me. So to sum up my thoughts, I don't really believe in God, but at the same time have no real proof to determine if there is one or not, hence the agnosticism.

Really I just wish there wasn't religion at all. It's all a bunch of bullsh'it that tends to spew hatred and misunderstanding.

nvm

http://i.imgur.com/mpQA0.jpg

Religion and morality cause people to justify actions that are irrational.

Also for the sake of the thread, I'm an ex-muslim Atheist.

http://i.imgur.com/mpQA0.jpg

Religion and morality cause people to justify actions that are irrational.

Also for the sake of the thread, I'm an ex-muslim Atheist.

Religion, I will agree with. Morality, I'm not quite sure.

Honestly I'm too shocked to even know what I want to say.

"I've never understood the psychology of an atheist. I don't see how you can believe that God doesn't exist and think that there's no way to prove it's existence, and then strongly believe that God doesn't exist, to the point of thinking that they can prove it."

Atheism ignores the idea of deity or a superior being that could be anything and fixates on the bible, on occidental systems of beliefs, what have you.
Sure, you can give a pseudo logical idea as to why old testament-new testament's God doesn't exist (and I'm guessing similar beliefs), they are easy to prove wrong with "simple" logic.
As it turns out, and in my opinion, contemporary atheism is something completely different, that could even be labeled as something else.

Also:

Religion and morality cause people to justify actions that are irrational.

What does this have to do with morals not being part of religion? You should check Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Also, Panacea:
Labeling things is what we do. We have sciences and branches of them dedicated to it's fullest to labeling. Labels are not problems, misunderstanding/misinterpreting labels is.

This is probably the dumbest idea but there are two types of Atheists, strong and weak.

The strong type is a system of belief that actively claim the nonexistence of all supernatural deities (i.e: They believe God doesn't exist), whereas the weak type is just skepticism on a particular topic (i.e: the earlier type of Atheists who got enough criticism for their silly nilly and converted to the safe waters of 99.99% no-God), so I feel that it's a waste of etymological resources to even name them.

Moral ethics has as much do with religion as ketchup has to do with frenchfries. They go together most of the time, one enhances the other and has no responsibility for what the other does when it's not around.
They are incidental companions (though one might argue it's fated/inevitable). Religious people do whatever they think pleases their God and it just so happens that most of those things today coincide with moral activities (e.g: crusades weren't so much moral but it did please their God by the time).

What does this have to do with morals not being part of religion? You should check Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

What does my post have to do with morals being a part of religion?

Anybody correct me if you disagree, but I think that the view of agnosticism not being a religion is one that more people will agree with, as atheists already view themselves and other people that don't believe in god as non religious, they consider themselves as non religious, and those of traditional religions tend to view them as netural as they don't deny the existance of God like atheists do.

Not disagreeing with you in what I'm about to say. I just have something further to add.

The traditional approach for religion is that everyone falls somewhere on a line, with atheism off to the left, theism off to the right, and agnosticism more toward the center.

However, this doesn't work for a few reasons. Agnosticism (and the counterpart, Gnosticism) is a knowledge based position. You know for certain that a God does or does not exist, or that God is knowable or unknowable. Theism (and the counterpart, Atheism) is a faith-based position. You either have the absence of faith, or you fully believe (and of course everything in between). Keeping everything on one line is mixing together knowledge-based and faith-based decisions.

So, instead of using a line, we use a Cartesian plane.

Agnostic Theism	Agnostic Atheism
Gnostic Theism	Gnostic Atheism

We can use this table to describe how various people view religions. For example, MasPan claimed a form of Deism. Deists believe that God started it all, but he is no longer present in day-to-day life. This makes a knowledge based claim that God is unknowable, making MasPan an Agnostic. However, he also states that a God exists, so that makes him a theist. That puts him firmly in Quadrant II.

A militant atheist (as some might call an "anti-theist"), on the other hand, knows that a God can't exist. That makes him a Gnostic. He also has no belief in any deities of any sort, making him an Atheist. That puts him in Quadrant IV.

Christian Fundamentalists would go in Quadrant III.

Get it? That should make classifying things a bit simpler.

Fiel's post in image form.

@ Words:

Sure, labeling in scientific fields is obviously justified, but you're out of context.

I'm talking about labeling people. It is because of this labeling that people will often barely even scratch the surface when it comes to others outside of their group. As per the context of this thread, Locked's image sums up my opinion:

People using their religion in order to justify whatever actions they take against those that are not similarly labeled.

As Fiel mentioned before, religious debates are tiring and not worth the effort or frustration. Believe what you want, I don't really care.

nvm

http://i.imgur.com/mpQA0.jpg

This saddens me.
:X

For example, MasPan claimed a form of Deism. Deists believe that God started it all, but he is no longer present in day-to-day life. This makes a knowledge based claim that God is unknowable, making MasPan an Agnostic. However, he also states that a God exists, so that makes him a theist. That puts him firmly in Quadrant II.

Since it concerns my own belief, I'd voice my skepticism for this interpretation.

1/ The deistic god is the other type of god. It simply exists out of this world and pushed things into motion instead of having characteristics attributed to the God of Abraham: omnipotence, omnipresence, etc... It would be inaccurate to classify deists as theists since theism deals with God in one or the other form, and even when the deistic god was around, they were in very few ways similar.

2/ How does the god not being present make it unknowable? If deists one day prove that something indeed did jumpstart the universe, wouldn't that be knowledge? We don't really see charges but that doesn't mean we don't see their electrostatic effects and study them to conclude their existence.

But yeah, see the confusion there? It's very tough to understand what is Agnostic and what is Gnostic when you take into account personal view point.

It's a personal choice.

- Do you believe that God is knowable?
- Can you know God's desires?
- Would you be willing to share your knowledge of God's current desires with others?

An great example of a Gnostic claim would come from the UCC, the United Church of Christ, whose slogan is "God is still speaking". This is a Gnostic claim because the leaders of the UCC know what Gods wishes, wants, and desires are and how that changes over time.

It's very easy to apply agnosticism to Christianity.

1. All people have sinned.
2. Sin is the gap that keeps us from knowing God. <--- Key premise!
3. Therefore, God is unknowable.

Most non-denominational and collegiate christian groups are agnostic.

Since it concerns my own belief, I'd voice my skepticism for this interpretation.

1/ The deistic god is the other type of god. It simply exists out of this world and pushed things into motion instead of having characteristics attributed to the God of Abraham: omnipotence, omnipresence, etc... It would be inaccurate to classify deists as theists since theism deals with God in one or the other form, and even when the deistic god was around, they were in very few ways similar.

A belief in a god is a belief in a god. Anyone that believes that some higher power existed now or any time in the past is a theist. People that believe in Vishnu and Shiva are theists, just as those who believe in Satan are theists. It does not matter what attributes or stories are part of a god, any belief in a god will earn the title of theist. You can't escape the cartesian plane.

2/ How does the god not being present make it unknowable? If deists one day prove that something indeed did jumpstart the universe, wouldn't that be knowledge? We don't really see charges but that doesn't mean we don't see their electrostatic effects and study them to conclude their existence.

It's pretty hard to know of a god's wishes, wants, or desires when he never makes himself evident, isn't it?

Yes, that would be knowledge, but that would be entirely opposite of what deism is. Deism is an agnostic belief. If Deists were to suddenly gain knowledge of a god's existence, then their presence is knowable, and thus you are no longer a Deist. You can't have it both ways.

nvm

I'd have no idea what types of beliefs would fall on the gnostic line.. for a person to be on that line they'd have to have be certain of a view that the probability of God is around 50/50, and that just seems bizarre.

"I'm sure there has to be a reason why we're all here, right? There's got to be something out there, but I don't know which god it could be."

A pure agnostic (center Atheism and Theism, absolutely no Gnosticism) might as well be called apathetic.

Tend to lead towards Agnostic Deist. Though to simplify my answer for the poll I simply chose to be Christian.

I can't rationalize or properly defend my stance on these things, so I'll choose to leave it at that.

It's pretty hard to know of a god's wishes, wants, or desires when he never makes himself evident, isn't it?

Of course, but given that the god in question was defined to have no wishes, wants nor desires, it doesn't seem to matter much to me.

Yes, that would be knowledge, but that would be entirely opposite of what deism is. Deism is an agnostic belief. If Deists were to suddenly gain knowledge of a god's existence, then their presence is knowable, and thus you are no longer a Deist. You can't have it both ways.

I can't wrap my mind around this.

Premise: Deists gain knowledge of god's existence in the past.
Conclusion: God's presence (or the lack thereof) in the present is knowable as a result.
Problem: There's nothing about the deistic god that guarantees this.

Premise: God's presence (or the lack thereof) in the present is knowable.
Conclusion: Believer is no longer a deist.
Problem: God's presence being knowable seems to suggest that it can either be affirmed or denied. In the case that it is affirmed, I'd agree that deism is then proven false. However, if it is denied, deism is correspondingly proven true.