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I'm going to agree with Riquende; Atheism and Agnosticism are distinct concepts.

A/theism is about what you believe.
A/gnosticism is about whether you are 100% certain in what you believe.

Ergo, you can have 4 basic positions as regards Theism:

Gnostic Theist - One who claims to know to 100% probability there is at least one God.

Agnostic Theist - One who believes there is a God but does not claim knowledge that proves it to 100% probability.

Agnostic Atheist - One who doesn't believe in a God, but doesn't claim knowledge that disproves all possible Gods to 100% probability.

Gnostic Athiest - One who claims to know to 100% probability that no Gods exist.


In this regard, there is no true neutral Agnostic "Abtheist" position available, unless you can find someone who holds all positions as regards belief in Gods as exactly equiprobable; the moment you move 0.00000000000001% in confidence away from a position of equal probability for the existence of God(s), you're an a/theist.

And if you simply don't care, or have never heard of Gods and so don't think about them, you're an apatheist.


I'd put myself as being an Agnostic Atheist, who believes it's 99.99999999999999% likely there are no Gods, but can't 100% prove it for all formulations of Gods.

Evil & Chaos wrote:
I'm going to agree with Riquende; Atheism and Agnosticism are distinct concepts.

A/theism is about what you believe.
A/gnosticism is about whether you are 100% certain in what you believe.

While I generally agree with the rest of your post, I still say that belief itself is not as binary as you and Riquende suggest. Whilst I would not normally post to wikipedia, I am working so can't discuss at length: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism

The article does discuss the difference in belief and uncertainty of the foundations of belief, and the main theme of the article does seem to be twinning the two in much the way that I have been discussing.

I'm just going to post this question to get a clearer picture and then will quietly watch from the sidelines.
I apologize in advance if this causes another argument.

I believe all possibilities are possible. I believe there may be a god, but at the same time, I believe there might not be. Also at the same time, I believe the possibility that whatever form the deity/ purpose in life/ true view of reality exists but at the same time doesn't and is in a form that the human mind cannot/ will never be able to conceive of.
Does that mean I'm religious, atheist, or agnostic?

 SkavenLord wrote:
I'm just going to post this question to get a clearer picture and then will quietly watch from the sidelines.
I apologize in advance if this causes another argument.

I believe all possibilities are possible. I believe there may be a god, but at the same time, I believe there might not be. Also at the same time, I believe the possibility that whatever form the deity/ purpose in life/ true view of reality exists but at the same time doesn't and is in a form that the human mind cannot/ will never be able to conceive of.
Does that mean I'm religious, atheist, or agnostic?

You believe there may be a god, you don't say you believe there is a god. Therefore atheist.

You don't claim to know anything, in fact seem quite comfortable with the idea that you don't know. Therefore agnostic.

So 'agnostic atheist' would fit for you.

I concur.

SkavenLord doesn't actively believe in the existence of a God or Gods, so he's an Atheist.

He isn't sure about the certainty of that belief, so he's an Agnostic Atheist.

Interesting. Alright, thanks for answering!

Atheist by default.

I'll stay comfortably agnostic about religious truth claims until such time as any kind of actual evidence for them materializes.

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
Microbiology was a good example two centuries ago...

"Microbiology" for a long time was considered to be daemons or vapours in the bood and air. When science advanced to the point it could explain what was seen on the macro level, it was quite quickly taken up.

Exactly this: before science could see microbians, it was "nasty nonsensic babble of supersticious people".

The whole "sould ideia" is beying trated like that right now in science (and if someday we found a way to prove its existance, science will call it by another completely different name anyway).

Im not saying that the soul really exist. Im just saying it could exist (an ideia that i find pleasant), and that not all guys trying to research it are frauds.

Plascebo Effect: we know it works, we dont know how it works (we have a glimpse, though)

This is quite well understood, although the exact mechanisms are currently undefined. Again, nothing that would indicate that a soul is required.

We are speaking the same things man

We know the light will be on if we pull the switch down. We have no ideia on how it happens. But some old ones tell something about "the energy who travel the wall", anyway there is nothing so special on the wall, and the lamp is in the roof, where is the connection?

And this made me question: what you understand when is say "soul"? It just crossed my mind that there are a dozen religions with different definitions, and maybe we are just talking about different animals...

 The Dwarf Wolf wrote:


Exactly this: before science could see microbians, it was "nasty nonsensic babble of supersticious people".

The whole "sould ideia" is beying trated like that right now in science (and if someday we found a way to prove its existance, science will call it by another completely different name anyway).

Im not saying that the soul really exist. Im just saying it could exist (an ideia that i find pleasant), and that not all guys trying to research it are frauds.

No. Just stop. For someone looking for a career in science you seem to have zero understanding of how the scientific process actually works.

Amazingly, we just went through this on the previous page, but I guess it bears repeating.

In science, research begins with an observation about the natural world. In this case, the observation was that patients could become infected with diseases despite physical isolation. Clearly, there was some mechanism that caused infection to spread, and clever people were able to hypothesise various causes, and these hypothesese could then be tested. I won't go into specifics, but the net result is that we learned to wash our hands between touching patients, and medicine was improved greatly. Thanks to science.

Now, to come back to the soul. What observation has been made in the natural world that has caused 'a soul' to be the subject of a scientific hypothesis? Because, and I quote myself:

" what physical or natural phenomena have been observed to instigate the research? If there isn't any, then what is it you're trying to explain? And if you're not trying to explain something specific, how do you know what processes you're testing for? How would you set up a reliable experiment if you don't have a clue what you're testing? "

I would say that anybody just generally 'researching' souls is by definition a fraud, as they're simply not following the scientific method, which underpins all of science.

I get that you (and others) find the idea of a soul and eternal life 'pleasant'. But that is not enough... nowhere near enough to justify arguing it as equivalent to 'undiscovered scientific finds' just because.

As an aside, until microbial infection was proposed as a hypothesis and survived the scientific process to become a credible theory, it would not have been justified to believe in it, even though it later turned out to be true. It's simply not enough to say "I believe this, there's no evidence to refute it, and you don't know it won't be true someday!". It's just not rational to believe a claim until you have good supporting evidence to do so.

The soul is a ridiculous idea. Don't you find it interesting that people that have NDEs or, cross over to the dead and come back, only ever seem to see people that they saw in real life? Yeah, there's a little something interesting about that.

 poda_t wrote:
The soul is a ridiculous idea. Don't you find it interesting that people that have NDEs or, cross over to the dead and come back, only ever seem to see people that they saw in real life? Yeah, there's a little something interesting about that.

Just going to drop this here...

What if the soul was something else? Not a physical entity that controls the body, but, say, a representation of who we are represented by using several personal and social factors and seen with differing perspectives depending on the person that sees it? Could it exist as a symbolic metaphor for ourselves?

Because I don't spend a lot of time debating about this sort of topic, I apologize if I've accidentally offended anyone.

But how would that be functionally different from our consciousness? We understand that we all have a 'me' within us (some people have several, sometimes with differing religious beliefs), but there's no reason to suspect that this sense of self is not a property of our brain, and hence tied to the physical world, despite having no physical form itself.

If someone wants to use the word 'soul' to describe nothing more than an individual's sense of self, then I'd agree in the existence of that. I'd still think it was needlessly relabeling something though, and contributing towards confusion in other discussions over 'souls' where it relates to religious beliefs such as eternal life.

Just thought I'd throw that in there for the sake of reflection.

I usually try to connect religion through symbolism by connecting it to humanist ideals and the end goal being a bit closer to any other person's ideals. Granted, I'm never sure about anything, but the results can be interesting sometimes.
For example, they say good souls go to heaven while bad ones go to hell. What is Heaven and Hell? Could it a society or mindset we build ourselves?

For example, let's look at guilt. If someone did something bad to someone, he's likely bound to feel guilty. Considering guilt is usually registered as bad, it leads to suffering. This is his "Hell," the place (mindset) he went to for doing wrong to others.

We can confess what we did, which gives us strength now that we're somewhat used to it to apologize to someone. If the person accepts the apology, our mindset may get better, allowing the person to enter a state of happiness and therefore entering his "Heaven." Until the person apologizes, his mindset is one that harms himself.

Could religion be a doctrine? A set of guidelines to enter this state of mind? Well then, why do people tell us to believe in a god? God could be a representation of kindness in the world. A model to follow. Of course, some people may take this the wrong way completely and use it to bully others. They do still enter the mindset of "Heaven," because they believe what they're doing is the right thing.

Keep in mind, that's just how I see it of course. I could be completely wrong.
I know that by saying this, I may be interfering with other peoples' views of religion. If that is the case, I do apologize.

 SkavenLord wrote:
Just thought I'd throw that in there for the sake of reflection.

I usually try to connect religion through symbolism by connecting it to humanist ideals and the end goal being a bit closer to any other person's ideals. Granted, I'm never sure about anything, but the results can be interesting sometimes.
For example, they say good souls go to heaven while bad ones go to hell. What is Heaven and Hell? Could it a society or mindset we build ourselves?

For example, let's look at guilt. If someone did something bad to someone, he's likely bound to feel guilty. Considering guilt is usually registered as bad, it leads to suffering. This is his "Hell," the place (mindset) he went to for doing wrong to others.

We can confess what we did, which gives us strength now that we're somewhat used to it to apologize to someone. If the person accepts the apology, our mindset may get better, allowing the person to enter a state of happiness and therefore entering his "Heaven." Until the person apologizes, his mindset is one that harms himself.

Could religion be a doctrine? A set of guidelines to enter this state of mind? Well then, why do people tell us to believe in a god? God could be a representation of kindness in the world. A model to follow. Of course, some people may take this the wrong way completely and use it to bully others. They do still enter the mindset of "Heaven," because they believe what they're doing is the right thing.

Keep in mind, that's just how I see it of course. I could be completely wrong.
I know that by saying this, I may be interfering with other peoples' views of religion. If that is the case, I do apologize.

People believe in a god for many reasons....a big one is pack mentality. Our most primal parts of our brain love the idea of an alpha male, an ultimate human like deity that is perfect in every way. That's a common theme across religions, I mean, how many imperfect gods have you heard of? "All praise god/allah/whatever the somewhat almighty?" Never been said, haha

A lot of the older gods were actually much more human, giving in to rages, getting drunk, falling in love, being tricked by other gods etc... of course that was in the days of being able to say the gods lived on top of a mountain; your god didnt have to be a vague unknowable being in order not to be instantly dismissed based on being able to climb to the top of said mountain in order to demonstrate that there are no gods living there...

 changerofways wrote:

 SkavenLord wrote:
Just thought I'd throw that in there for the sake of reflection.

I usually try to connect religion through symbolism by connecting it to humanist ideals and the end goal being a bit closer to any other person's ideals. Granted, I'm never sure about anything, but the results can be interesting sometimes.
For example, they say good souls go to heaven while bad ones go to hell. What is Heaven and Hell? Could it a society or mindset we build ourselves?

For example, let's look at guilt. If someone did something bad to someone, he's likely bound to feel guilty. Considering guilt is usually registered as bad, it leads to suffering. This is his "Hell," the place (mindset) he went to for doing wrong to others.

We can confess what we did, which gives us strength now that we're somewhat used to it to apologize to someone. If the person accepts the apology, our mindset may get better, allowing the person to enter a state of happiness and therefore entering his "Heaven." Until the person apologizes, his mindset is one that harms himself.

Could religion be a doctrine? A set of guidelines to enter this state of mind? Well then, why do people tell us to believe in a god? God could be a representation of kindness in the world. A model to follow. Of course, some people may take this the wrong way completely and use it to bully others. They do still enter the mindset of "Heaven," because they believe what they're doing is the right thing.

Keep in mind, that's just how I see it of course. I could be completely wrong.
I know that by saying this, I may be interfering with other peoples' views of religion. If that is the case, I do apologize.

People believe in a god for many reasons....a big one is pack mentality. Our most primal parts of our brain love the idea of an alpha male, an ultimate human like deity that is perfect in every way. That's a common theme across religions, I mean, how many imperfect gods have you heard of? "All praise god/allah/whatever the somewhat almighty?" Never been said, haha

Good point.
I remember I would pray when stressful events happened. I'm not sure if it was divine intervention or not (I never take a side on these sort of things), but it at least gave me some form of confidence.
I didn't think of it much as a perfect being in every way, but more as a perfect father figure with rules (listen to your father, be nice to people, etc.)
Still, that's just how I see it. Others see it differently and they may be right too.

I believe only in the Imperial Truth.

 Vet Sgt Ezekiel wrote:
I believe only in the Imperial Truth.

PRAISE THE EMPRAH!!!

 Vet Sgt Ezekiel wrote:
I believe only in the Imperial Truth.

I am a heretic I believe in The Lord of Destruction, The king of depravation, THE LORD OF DEBT, Bob The great and powerful cheese warlock of Amsterdam!

Hell guys, what about Gork and Mork

Illogical thuggery and superstition.

Next you'll be saying there's a Machine God.

Good Baptist Christian.

Hey TheDiscoSpider what made you lean towards being irreligious after doing all the Catholic stuff (was it like to much of it or something lol)

 Overlord Thraka wrote:
Good Baptist Christian.

Why?

I am agnostic atheist.

I am also hold beliefs that I think many would describe as militant, but from my perspective, it is a very reasonable belief to hold.

Those beliefs are:
- Communities that ostracize family members as punishment for leaving should be illegal, this means cults like Jehovah witnesses, Scientology would be propitiated from practicing in the country.
- The government is required to give children an secular education, that teaches science and keeps religion in religion class. Religious schools will be forbidden (unless is a school for adults 18+).
- Children until the age of 18 should be protected from religion, meaning preaching to kids, or bringing kids to places or religious site for religious purposes should be forbidden (kids will be allowed on religious places for non religious purposes, for example marriage, the priest will of course have to change his/her speak to be secular).


Religion should be a matter of a grown up individual making a choice to believe, not something that is thought into young minds or at occasion even brain washed into kids.

flodihn wrote:



Religion should be a matter of a grown up individual making a choice to believe, not something that is thought into young minds or at occasion even brain washed into kids.

Like it or not, we're all brainwashed by whatever culture we grow up in (Western, middle-eastern, oriental, etc.), saying that one type of thinking is dangerous is a dodgy way to look at it - from their point of view everybody else has been "brainwashed".

I like to think that most people will grow up and think for themselves

 orksmasha wrote:

flodihn wrote:



Religion should be a matter of a grown up individual making a choice to believe, not something that is thought into young minds or at occasion even brain washed into kids.

Like it or not, we're all brainwashed by whatever culture we grow up in (Western, middle-eastern, oriental, etc.), saying that one type of thinking is dangerous is a dodgy way to look at it - from their point of view everybody else has been "brainwashed".

I like to think that most people will grow up and think for themselves

Wow, you just tried to argue that religion, cultures and "type of thinking" is one of the same and brainwashed into us.

These three things are vastly different and it is not dodgy at all to consider "different types of thinking" dangerous.

1 Culture is not equal to religion
Culture is no way remotely comparable to religion, most culture has roots in religion but it does not impose a religion itself. For example, I am form Sweden where about 80+ percent of the population are atheists.

We still celebrate Christmas (Christianity moved Jesus birthday to match the winter solstice to better integrate with other religions). However, in my and most families, this is not a religions event, it originates from an ancient belief in Scandinavian leprechauns (that is how Santa got is look/cloths), and coca-cola during the 50 or so gave him the red dress (he was gray/green before) and Christianity exported this idea of a leprechaun as a christian saint, thus giving him the English/American name "Santa Claus" (Saint Claus). However in Scandinavia, he is not referred to as this saint rather just as "The Christmas Leprechaun".

During the summer solstice, Swedes also raise a maypole (which is a depiction of a male reproductive organ), dances around it and sing songs about little frogs, just google for "Swedish Midsummer" and you get the idea. This originates from ancient viking, perhaps even pre-vikings religions in the Scandinavian region.

But both of these events have really no religious meaning anymore, of course the Christian in Sweden still regards Christmas as an religions time, but all but the most religious extremists still celebrate Midsummer as a culture, non-religious event.

The bottom line is while cultures and cultural events often have religious origins, they have been adapted and transformed often over thousands of years so that they original religious meanings are lost and thus have became a cultural event practiced by different communities, participating in these cultural events are also often optional, often without requiring the participants to actually believe in anything or implant religious myths as truth into people's mind. Thus cultures are not "brainwashing" people in the same way as many religions do.
And that is how culture is vastly different from religion.
Sidetrack: There are many culture events/beliefs that are negative and should be fought, such as bride kidnapping in Kazakhstan or the concept of murdering your own daughter if she disobeys the family or lost her virginity the wrong way to preserve the family honor.


2 Is it really dodgy to belief some ways of thinking are dangerous?
Now let me address your viewpoint that "saying that one type of thinking is dangerous" is somehow dodgy. I don't think there is anyone in the entire world (not even you) that actually believe this. For example, let me state some "type of thinking" and see if you think it dodgy to be against that:
All people from wales should be killed.
All non-belivers in X faith should be converted or killed.
It is perfectly fine that woman are not allowed to vote, drive cars, or travel outside the house without the company of a male.

If you can honestly look at all these 3 statements and say that you don't see any danger in people actually having these beliefs, I claim that you are the one with a dodgy viewpoint, not me.
How do determine what is a dangerous belief is a bit of a side-track, I am willing to discuss it but I think I need to put some thought in a good definition of this.



3 Problem with people growing up and making their own choice
At last, "I like to think that most people will grow up and think for themselves". I agree on this, however, my issue comes afterwards someone made a decision to leave a cult (sometimes religious cult) that practice ex-communication of members and prevents family members and friends to socialize with the person leaving. If you search on "lost faith", "how I lost faith", "leaving Scientology" you will get a many people expressing the pain and hurt it took them to leave, sometimes they claim they stayed in their cult as non-believers for years just because of the implications it would mean to leave.
That is why I want rules against such cults and religions that practice punishment for leaving.

That is why I want rules against such cults and religions that practice punishment for leaving.

So you're intolerant of intolerance?


Me Acalyte of the Great Wiener, and TBone his ghostly Herald. Hail Wienie! We are Legion!

I am not religious, but view about the life/world - more like pagan

Atheist, I feel a lot of people in this thread are actual Atheists but the negative connotation that's been given to that title dissuades a number of people from wanting to attribute it to themselves.

I personally view it in a positive light.