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Atheist.

Agnosticism is non-exclusive. Nobody knows, regardless of what they claim. I used to be agnostic atheist until I realized that, at which point I realized I was just plain atheist. (That's right agnostics, atheists don't claim to know, either!) Unless you're simply torn between the gods of different faiths, in which case you're an agnostic theist.

@Evil and Chaos, some atheists may claim to know 100% that no gods could possibly exist, but if you actually ask around atheist circles you'll actually find that most would claim 99%. While that difference may sound silly, it's actually quite significant because most atheists have familiarized themselves with the concepts of absolute certainty. That, and they're not as arrogant as the religious tend to depict them. It's more a matter of how difficult it is to challenge something that someone else holds sacred without making them think you're being arrogant, condescending, or anything of that nature. It's hard to do.

 Quarterdime wrote:
Atheist.

Agnosticism is non-exclusive. Nobody knows, regardless of what they claim. I used to be agnostic atheist until I realized that, at which point I realized I was just plain atheist. (That's right agnostics, atheists don't claim to know, either!) Unless you're simply torn between the gods of different faiths, in which case you're an agnostic theist.

@Evil and Chaos, some atheists may claim to know 100% that no gods could possibly exist, but if you actually ask around atheist circles you'll actually find that most would claim 99%. While that difference may sound silly, it's actually quite significant because most atheists have familiarized themselves with the concepts of absolute certainty. That, and they're not as arrogant as the religious tend to depict them. It's more a matter of how difficult it is to challenge something that someone else holds sacred without making them think you're being arrogant, condescending, or anything of that nature. It's hard to do.

I usually qualify the 99% certainty statement with "I'm 99% sure Harry Potter and Hogwarts aren't real either". That may sound condescending to some, which you say most try to avoid, but I prefer to put things in the proper context and let the chips fall where they may.

 Atheos wrote:

 Quarterdime wrote:
Atheist.

Agnosticism is non-exclusive. Nobody knows, regardless of what they claim. I used to be agnostic atheist until I realized that, at which point I realized I was just plain atheist. (That's right agnostics, atheists don't claim to know, either!) Unless you're simply torn between the gods of different faiths, in which case you're an agnostic theist.

@Evil and Chaos, some atheists may claim to know 100% that no gods could possibly exist, but if you actually ask around atheist circles you'll actually find that most would claim 99%. While that difference may sound silly, it's actually quite significant because most atheists have familiarized themselves with the concepts of absolute certainty. That, and they're not as arrogant as the religious tend to depict them. It's more a matter of how difficult it is to challenge something that someone else holds sacred without making them think you're being arrogant, condescending, or anything of that nature. It's hard to do.

I usually qualify the 99% certainty statement with "I'm 99% sure Harry Potter and Hogwarts aren't real either". That may sound condescending to some, which you say most try to avoid, but I prefer to put things in the proper context and let the chips fall where they may.

And typically the two kinds of responses are given by people who are already predisposed to skepticism (no offense taken) or faith (offense taken). It's not that it's you're fault for being honest, you just need to learn how to... well... communicate. Honesty is only so good a communicator. People have totally different thought processes, and if you open your heart up to someone they may not even see that and just take it as they would any insult and respond with an insult of their own thinking that they were in the right, because after all, how dare you...

Granda always said "if god created man the devil created religion". I have no time for religion or its peoples the world is better off without it. I have seen to much hate and death over a fecking book that is then interpreted differently when they want to get away with something.

I'm an agnostic syncretist, maining Christianity.

So I guess I'll vote "Other"

Raised catholic then I learned that my religion slaughtered countless thousand and is a very hypocritical system. I kinda think the emperor of man was right with his belief that religion causes more trouble then good...

Not saying I don't believe in a "higher power" but that higher power may not care about our little spec of dust planet we call earth.

Or maybe he does love us and free will and such but I think self empowerment is the way to go.

You are your god lol

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Raised catholic then I learned that my religion slaughtered countless thousand and is a very hypocritical system. I kinda think the emperor of man was right with his belief that religion causes more trouble then good...

Not saying I don't believe in a "higher power" but that higher power may not care about our little spec of dust planet we call earth.

Or maybe he does love us and free will and such but I think self empowerment is the way to go.

You are your god lol

If he made us and knew what we would do, and controls everything around us, then free will would be completely undermined by it. Which is evidence that he would be malevolent as opposed to powerless if that particular god exists. See "The Problem of Evil" and the famous quote by Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

I would say that this is the formula that disproves god as written, but unfortunately he is written as a malevolent god in the bible so it sticks.

 Quarterdime wrote:

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Raised catholic then I learned that my religion slaughtered countless thousand and is a very hypocritical system. I kinda think the emperor of man was right with his belief that religion causes more trouble then good...

Not saying I don't believe in a "higher power" but that higher power may not care about our little spec of dust planet we call earth.

Or maybe he does love us and free will and such but I think self empowerment is the way to go.

You are your god lol

If he made us and knew what we would do, and controls everything around us, then free will would be completely undermined by it. Which is evidence that he would be malevolent as opposed to powerless if that particular god exists. See "The Problem of Evil" and the famous quote by Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

I would say that this is the formula that disproves god as written, but unfortunately he is written as a malevolent god in the bible so it sticks.

Epicurus's logic is flawed however, because he assumes that his definition of good and evil is the only correct one to which God must answer. Good and evil are highly subjective, even among humans. If an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being were to exist, its definition of good and evil might be completely alien to us. Therefore, God's unwillingness to prevent evil might not be malevolent at all in God's own view. Maybe this evil is there for a greater good? Maybe evil is even necessary to allow good to exist? After all, how could something ever be good if there was no evil?

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Quarterdime wrote:

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Raised catholic then I learned that my religion slaughtered countless thousand and is a very hypocritical system. I kinda think the emperor of man was right with his belief that religion causes more trouble then good...

Not saying I don't believe in a "higher power" but that higher power may not care about our little spec of dust planet we call earth.

Or maybe he does love us and free will and such but I think self empowerment is the way to go.

You are your god lol

If he made us and knew what we would do, and controls everything around us, then free will would be completely undermined by it. Which is evidence that he would be malevolent as opposed to powerless if that particular god exists. See "The Problem of Evil" and the famous quote by Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

I would say that this is the formula that disproves god as written, but unfortunately he is written as a malevolent god in the bible so it sticks.

If an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being were to exist, its definition of good and evil might be completely alien to us.

Unless we were made in God's own image

I can go on

 Quarterdime wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Quarterdime wrote:

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Raised catholic then I learned that my religion slaughtered countless thousand and is a very hypocritical system. I kinda think the emperor of man was right with his belief that religion causes more trouble then good...

Not saying I don't believe in a "higher power" but that higher power may not care about our little spec of dust planet we call earth.

Or maybe he does love us and free will and such but I think self empowerment is the way to go.

You are your god lol

If he made us and knew what we would do, and controls everything around us, then free will would be completely undermined by it. Which is evidence that he would be malevolent as opposed to powerless if that particular god exists. See "The Problem of Evil" and the famous quote by Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

I would say that this is the formula that disproves god as written, but unfortunately he is written as a malevolent god in the bible so it sticks.

If an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being were to exist, its definition of good and evil might be completely alien to us.

Unless we were made in God's own image

I can go on

We are not omnipotent etc.
We might be made in God's image, but that does not mean we are anything like God.
Also keep in mind that according to the Bible, humans were created without a sense of Good and Evil.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

We might be made in God's image, but that does not mean we are anything like God.

I should frame that.

Yeah, how could we know what's REALLY good and evil, after all if god made everyone on earth happy then we'd probably be living in sin and deserve to suffer for it. Sounds like God's either malevolent or powerless to stop a greater power than he, which could only be the fabric of reality.

But I digress. You clearly want to overlook it, so I'll emphasize it.

We were made in God's image. This means that we are not unlike god. So genesis says that we were created without knowledge of sin, but then we bit from the tree of knowledge, and acquired it. So the ball's back in your court.

Agnostic. I want to believe there is purpose and order to the universe and that life isn't some pointless exercise but I think that all of the holy books have it wrong.

 agnosto wrote:
Agnostic. I want to believe there is purpose and order to the universe and that life isn't some pointless exercise but I think that all of the holy books have it wrong.

If Descartes had been Agnostic: I doubt, therefore I might be.

Agnostic

Edit: I made my full post somewhere below, I should have just edited this one

 Happyjew wrote:

 agnosto wrote:
Agnostic. I want to believe there is purpose and order to the universe and that life isn't some pointless exercise but I think that all of the holy books have it wrong.

If Descartes had been Agnostic: I doubt, therefore I might be.

Not quite. I just think that there is enough fluctuation in the universe to confirm even a possible supreme being is fallible. My degree in ancient history has exposed me to enough linguistic, historical and archaeological evidence to know that every current major religion is most definitely not following their holy books, if they haven't just outright rewritten them. Since there's no hellfire and brimstone from a slandered and oft-misquoted deity, I'll assume that they either a) don't care or b) don't exist. In either case, if they can't be bothered to care, I won't be fussed about following the edicts of their supposed mouthpieces on earth.

I am Agnostic
Also practicing Buddhism

I think organised religion is naive.

We can have all of the good morals and direction in religion with philosophy, without the blind faith of an organised religion.

Finding the ultimate meaning of existence, consciousness and life should be something that you find on your own, not what you read out of some holy sacred book.
Honestly, I don't believe in a "god". I think the closest thing to a god is nature, the existence of life that flows through all living things.

With respect, I think atheists are stubborn.
They have the main concept down, but lack direction
too focused on resisting religion rather than finding their own meaning.

Science gives us plenty of reasons to combat religion, but science does not have the answer to everything. People who say, why have religion when we have science I find are hypocritical, If you don't have faith, then what is science? Isn't that faith too?

My favorite quote from Buddhism
"Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue." -Buddha

With respect, I think atheists are stubborn.
They have the main concept down, but lack direction
too focused on resisting religion rather than finding their own meaning.

Care to expand a little on what you mean by that?

I'm an Agnostic Atheist (just like 99% of atheists, including all the famous ones), with a heavy slant towards "there's no credible evidence for any gods, so it's almost certain there aren't any".

That fact (my atheism) is only one of a million facts about me, many of which give me direction and purpose in life.

Cheesecat wrote:I'm just curious what the religious makeup of DakkaDakka is, so I made a poll. For me personally I'm irreligious I don't believe in any form of religion, in fact I don't believe in the supernatural either so I guess I'm a naturalist as well that being said I don't have any problems with other people

being religious or believing in the supernatural so long as they don't use it as an excuse for abusing others.

A Naturalist would be someone who doesn't believe in clothes.

I'm a non-denominational animist. I believe that there is a soul in all things, and that they should be respected... or sternly admonished if they mess up, right, PC?

My PC cowers appropriately.

 Quarterdime wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

We might be made in God's image, but that does not mean we are anything like God.

I should frame that.

Yeah, how could we know what's REALLY good and evil, after all if god made everyone on earth happy then we'd probably be living in sin and deserve to suffer for it. Sounds like God's either malevolent or powerless to stop a greater power than he, which could only be the fabric of reality.

But I digress. You clearly want to overlook it, so I'll emphasize it.

We were made in God's image. This means that we are not unlike god. So genesis says that we were created without knowledge of sin, but then we bit from the tree of knowledge, and acquired it. So the ball's back in your court.

You are the one that is overlooking things.
Being made in God's image does not mean we are anything like God. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and incorporeal. Humans are completely unlike that. These having or not-having of these characteristics makes a massive chance to the nature of a being. Because we humans are so very different, it is impossible for us to even get close to understanding something that is omniscient etc.
Being made in the image of God means humans have Godlike characteristics. It does however not mean humans have all of God's characteristics. And according to Genesis, one of those characteristics humans lacked in the beginning was knowledge of Good and Evil.
To return to the original point: Epicurus' argument only makes sense when you see the existence of evil in the world as malevolent negligence on the part of God. If you don't, the whole argument falls apart.

Evil, as a concept, is nothing more than the absence of good, just like darkness is the absence of light. Evil therefore has no positive reality. It does not exist, it is merely our name for the absence of good. God never created evil, evil is only the result of our choice to deviate from the path of perfect goodness.
Regarding "The Problem of Evil", St. Augustine had this to say about it:

And in the universe, even that which is called evil, when it is regulated and put in its own place, only enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and value the good more when we compare it with the evil. For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil. For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present—namely, the diseases and wounds—go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist; for the wound or disease is not a substance, but a defect in the fleshly substance,—the flesh itself being a substance, and therefore something good, of which those evils—that is, privations of the good which we call health—are accidents. Just in the same way, what are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not transferred elsewhere: when they cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else.

In other words, evil exists because we humans, unlike God, are not perfect and omnibenevolent as a result from the Fall of Man. We humans were created with the ability of independent thought, and therefore also the ability to rebel against God, the sole source of good, instead of being slaves to His Will. In doing so, we are also responsible for the existence of evil. Evil exists because humans have free will. If God had only allowed us to commit good, we would not have had a free will, and if our good had thusly not been committed out of free will, than how good would it have really been? What worth is good when there is no evil to compare it to?

Personally, I would argue that the existence of evil is necessary for the existence of good. Just like you would never know what 'cold' was if you would never have known 'warmth'. Evil therefore exists precisely because God is good. Without the existence of evil, God could not have been good.

The above are only a few of the myriad possible explanations of this so called 'problem' of evil.
I also rather liked C.S. Lewis' argument that the problem of evil is self-refuting:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too—for the argument depended on saying the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my fancies.

Voted to complete the data set, but I don't think they manufacture a pole long enough to get me to poke this topic on the internet.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Evil, as a concept, is nothing more than the absence of good, just like darkness is the absence of light. Evil therefore has no positive reality. It does not exist, it is merely our name for the absence of good. God never created evil, evil is only the result of our choice to deviate from the path of perfect goodness.

Isaiah 45:7:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

The word "create" there in the original Hebrew is the same word used when God creates the world in Genesis, by the way.

For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good?

I'd say that creating faulty DNA that gives fatal, extremely painful eye cancer to innocent babies would be evil.

In other words, evil exists because we humans, unlike God, are not perfect and omnibenevolent as a result from the Fall of Man. We humans were created with the ability of independent thought, and therefore also the ability to rebel against God, the sole source of good, instead of being slaves to His Will.

Except the predestination paradox of a Creator God which has Omnipotence and Omniscience logically precludes the existence of Free Will in his creations. It's a paradox that can only be solved by pretending that "god is mysterious" is a sufficient answer (It's not. It's a dodge that answers nothing).

And like I noted, the Bible makes it explicit that God creates evil intentionally, it's not a product of an absence of Godliness as per the Bible.

In doing so, we are also responsible for the existence of evil.

A baby is responsible for the painful eye cancer that kills her?

If God had only allowed us to commit good, we would not have had a free will, and if our good had thusly not been committed out of free will, than how good would it have really been? What worth is good when there is no evil to compare it to?

It's possible to have Good and Neutral.
Or Good and "Minor Evil" (a temporarily itchy eye, instead of fatal eye cancer, for example).

But you think your God chose to create Good, and create "Horrible Evil" as its counterpart.
That's a problem for the ethics of your "loving" and "all powerful" God > He uses his Omnipotence to intentionally create Evil.

Interestingly enough, I've been to Mormon church more then any other church...I don't know any Mormons, nor do I have any family that are Mormon, I simply decided one day it would be neat to do...
Sometimes there was free food and I got some free books but not nearly enough.

I could never actually be a Mormon, they're way too stuffy (amongst a lot of other things).

 Iron_Captain wrote:

We are not omnipotent etc.
We might be made in God's image, but that does not mean we are anything like God.
Also keep in mind that according to the Bible, humans were created without a sense of Good and Evil.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Quarterdime wrote:

 zombiekila707 wrote:
Raised catholic then I learned that my religion slaughtered countless thousand and is a very hypocritical system. I kinda think the emperor of man was right with his belief that religion causes more trouble then good...

Not saying I don't believe in a "higher power" but that higher power may not care about our little spec of dust planet we call earth.

Or maybe he does love us and free will and such but I think self empowerment is the way to go.

You are your god lol

If he made us and knew what we would do, and controls everything around us, then free will would be completely undermined by it. Which is evidence that he would be malevolent as opposed to powerless if that particular god exists. See "The Problem of Evil" and the famous quote by Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

I would say that this is the formula that disproves god as written, but unfortunately he is written as a malevolent god in the bible so it sticks.

Epicurus's logic is flawed however, because he assumes that his definition of good and evil is the only correct one to which God must answer. Good and evil are highly subjective, even among humans. If an omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being were to exist, its definition of good and evil might be completely alien to us. Therefore, God's unwillingness to prevent evil might not be malevolent at all in God's own view. Maybe this evil is there for a greater good? Maybe evil is even necessary to allow good to exist? After all, how could something ever be good if there was no evil?

The Bible fairly clearly defines what is "good" and what is "evil", and even by those very simple metrics, the God of that book fails Epicurus' test. If Evil must exist for there to be Good, then God is neither (for He existed before there was Evil, by the Bible's description of events), and thus worshipping Him is a waste of time, as Epicurus posits.

And if God is either malevolent or unwilling/uninterested, or both... indeed, why bother worshipping him? Might as well worship the Cimmerian god Crom for all the good it will do you.

We are further told, in the Book of Job, that any temptation of mortals to sin by Satan is done with God's explicit permission. The Devil does not act (according to the Bible) except with God's permission... and God, if He is truly omniscient, already knows whether or not you're going to fall to the temptation or not. So, really, "free will" is illusory, your fate is already pre-determined by His foreknowledge of it.

And the last concept... what kind of loving God punishes people for all eternity for things they did in under a century of life wherein they have *plenty* of opportunities to fall to temptations... especially when it seems that the supposed servants of said God are allowed to be a huckstery as they like, profiting from human misery and ignorance, without repercussions.

Dudeism


Its offically a religion

Imperial Cult, For the Emperor!

I don't see an option for worshipping the Emperor, better get the Inquisition down.

 djones520 wrote:

 daedalus wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
I'm not sure this thread will end well...

Nah, we're good here. We might actually make it to the second page.

That would be nice. As an Atheist, nothing annoys me more then seeing my fellow Atheists go out of their way to pick fights.

Atheists aren't generally the ones who pick fights. Agnostics who think that they're atheists are usually the donkey-caves.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I believe in a combination of Buddhism, Mormonism, mainstream Christianity, and host of other stuff... But I still believe in my Lord and Savior, so Christian.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Quarterdime wrote:
Atheist.

Agnosticism is non-exclusive. Nobody knows, regardless of what they claim. I used to be agnostic atheist until I realized that, at which point I realized I was just plain atheist. (That's right agnostics, atheists don't claim to know, either!) Unless you're simply torn between the gods of different faiths, in which case you're an agnostic theist.

@Evil and Chaos, some atheists may claim to know 100% that no gods could possibly exist, but if you actually ask around atheist circles you'll actually find that most would claim 99%. While that difference may sound silly, it's actually quite significant because most atheists have familiarized themselves with the concepts of absolute certainty. That, and they're not as arrogant as the religious tend to depict them. It's more a matter of how difficult it is to challenge something that someone else holds sacred without making them think you're being arrogant, condescending, or anything of that nature. It's hard to do.

It's not a matter of them challenging it, it's how they challenge it. It's usually, "i'm right, you're wrong, and you're an idiot for not agreeing with me". On occasion, they will use actual logic instead of just insulting me and my religion, but I've learned not to have theological discussions with atheists. I was once called Schizophrenic for saying that I had received confirming revelation from God about my religion, which in reality is just a feeling. I say again, a feeling.

I believe in a combination of ... Mormonism

How do you feel about the fact that Joseph Smith was convicted in a court of law of conning people by pretending to have magical abilities, and then later went on to start Mormonism?

I was once called Schizophrenic for saying that I had received confirming revelation from God about my religion, which in reality is just a feeling.

What kind of a feeling?