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Secular Humanist.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Christian, and I believe in the teachings from the Bible that tell us to love our fellow man and respect him, even if his views and life choices are different. Despite acting like an ass on the Internet from time to time (we ALL do it), I want nothing more than everyone to get along and work together. That's what Christianity means to me. Acceptance and love.

amen

 rhinosaur wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Christian, and I believe in the teachings from the Bible that tell us to love our fellow man and respect him, even if his views and life choices are different. Despite acting like an ass on the Internet from time to time (we ALL do it), I want nothing more than everyone to get along and work together. That's what Christianity means to me. Acceptance and love.

amen

I'm a humanist and an atheist. I don't believe the things you believe, but "I want nothing more than everyone to get along and work together". I still think you are mistaken on the god thing, as you no doubt think I am, but that should be no barrier to co-operation.

Interestingly this poll is pretty close to the demographics of the UK.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Knight_Alpha wrote:
Second law of thermodynamics, where it talks about the level of entropy in a system. A system will always go from a state of order into a state of chaos, and never naturally the other way around. This law can be applied to nature. A house, for example, if you start to knock it down, then it will continue to increase in chaos until it doesn't exist anymore. With that in mind, the Big Bang theory can't possibly be true unless there is a superior being to organize the material produced by the explosion. So, not really a theory, but a law helps strengthen my faith.

Life leads to more entropy than none life. Therefore it is perfectly in line with the second law, not in violation of it. Every step in the process of life is within the bounds of said law. I can go into more detail if you like. Similarly all chemical interactions in the universe fall within the bounds of the second law. You simply misunderstand order and chaos with regards to this specific rule.

Further the second law only applies to closed systems, thus if you have an external energy source the rules doesn't apply. If you then include that energy source in the system you will see it return to compliance. That is to say looking at the earth and ignoring the sun you may see apparent violation, but if you include the sun as part of the system you won't.

Lastly on large enough (that is universal) scale the second law breaks down as it does not work on relativistic scales. E.g. black holes have a negative energy density. For this reason applying the 2nd law on truly large scales is usually a mistake, unless you really understand the science behind it and its relation to relativity (which I don't, I'm a biologist, not a cosmologist). Thermodynamics is fascinating, but also local.

I don't mind that you're a christian. I think you might find learning about thermodynamics as it really is a little more interesting than the misrepresentation you have acquired. I know I found it fascinating.

Atheist. Don't believe in any gods, if one came down from the sky I would believe in him/her, but nor worship.

I tend to think of myself as atheist, agnostic. But i can't help but believe that there is some form of an omniscient entity out there.

Know there's a higher force from one or 2 personal experiences. Know it's benevolent. Know we continue after death, though as to the manner of that continuation, I don't believe any of us know, and that's why I tend to tune out when religions preach about these very absolute and certain statements on the afterlife. They all claim different things, and obviously they can't all be right, so as far as I'm concerned, there is an afterlife, bit it's anture is utterly unknown to us, and I'm ok with that. I likewise have little time for religious dogma or strict adherence to antiquated and in some cases brutal rules and practices that largely cause more grief than good, particularely as those said rules and practices were most often brought about by leaders for far less altruistic reasons than carrying out their God's will. In short I respect the shared core beliefs on living a good life that most religions share -don't murder, don't steal, be compassionate and don't go around being a ****. In short I respect the shared core beliefs on living a good life that most religions share -don't murder, don't steal, be compassionate and don't go around being a ****.

If I were to say I'm closest to following anything it's Buddhism, because its as much a spiritual way of life as it is a religion, and the quest for inner peace and transcending our worse natures is an integral part of my own life.

*grabs popcorn*

I worship Gork and Mork, the toughest and best gods!

Atheist.
Or rather rational humanist. I like to think I'm accepting of people's views but deep down I really believe organised religion is the expression of some very unpleasant inherited human drives. I tend to keep that view to myself as I don't fancy engaging with zealotry of any kind.

Drager wrote:

Interestingly this poll is pretty close to the demographics of the UK.

1% muslims in UK? Laughing my ass off here. Try 5%, plus 100k converts, most of them women.

 triplegrim wrote:

Drager wrote:

Interestingly this poll is pretty close to the demographics of the UK.

1% muslims in UK? Laughing my ass off here. Try 5%, plus 100k converts, most of them women.

Not really sure why you single out Islam here when this poll massively inflates the number of athiests and under represents Christians in the UK... It doesn't really reflect the makeup of the UK at all

Though I can't help but feel things might be better with less religion around, especially if atheists were in the majority...

Despite falling numbers Christianity remains the largest religion in England and Wales in 2011. Muslims are the next biggest religious group and have grown in the last decade. Meanwhile the proportion of the population who reported they have no religion has now reached a quarter of the population.
In the 2011 Census, Christianity was the largest religion, with 33.2 million people (59.3 per cent of the population). The second largest religious group were Muslims with 2.7 million people (4.8 per cent of the population).

14.1 million people, around a quarter of the population in England and Wales, reported they have no religion in 2011.

The religion question was the only voluntary question on the 2011 census and 7.2 per cent of people did not answer the question.

Between 2001 and 2011 there has been a decrease in people who identify as Christian (from 71.7 per cent to 59.3 per cent) and an increase in those reporting no religion (from 14.8 per cent to 25.1 per cent). There were increases in the other main religious group categories, with the number of Muslims increasing the most (from 3.0 per cent to 4.8 per cent).

In 2011, London was the most diverse region with the highest proportion of people identifying themselves as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Jewish. The North East and North West had the highest proportion of Christians and Wales had the highest proportion of people reporting no religion.

Knowsley was the local authority with the highest proportion of people reporting to be Christians at 80.9 per cent and Tower Hamlets had the highest proportion of Muslims at 34.5 per cent (over 7 times the England and Wales figure). Norwich had the highest proportion of the population reporting no religion at 42.5 per cent.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census/key-statistics-for-local-authorities-in-england-and-wales/rpt-religion.html

I just think its the biggest difference between UK real numbers and this poll. Its the difference between 1 out of 100, and 1 out of 20.

I'm Christian and I assist regularly to catholic mass, but unlike most of christian, I don't believe God to be a physical being.
I see him as a kind of virtuous set of concept (Justice, Prudence, Temperance, Courage...) that exists only in people mind.
Only once in History was a human fully thinking & acting according to this code of conduct ignoring his own survival instinct and this man was later know as the Christ.

The fact that God only "exists" now in people mind doesn't lower his importance.

Just look the massive building you can see in city centre. Before been built, it was only something on a set of maps, plans or blueprints. Before this documents exist, the building was existing already in the architect mind.
Do you know what happen to building that have not been deeply conceived inside mind? They fall down or get fire because of bad conception.
The building is our world, the documents are the Bible (or equivalent like Edda, Rigveda, Theogony,...) and God the Thought that inspire them.

Therefore, as leaving in the north part of Europa, I consider most of German-Nordic myth like parables as valuable as the Bible's one since the Bible is sometime too restricted to the Middle-East just like the Greek mythology is too focused on the Mediterranean world.
Where I leave flooding is too regular for Noah story to sound like a punishment, desert dryness sounds like Sci-Fi and Mose "spring-finding" skill not a great power. Greek or Roman invasion is nothing children of Arminius or Boadicea can't repel better than the Maccabees and finally the Franks Crusaders didn't need a 40 years Exodus to storm Jerusalem but only a 3 1/2 years journey...
According to St Remy legend, when Clovis was instructed prior his baptism to the Passion of Christ story, he reacted to Jesus arrest & St Peter failure to prevent it by saying « Ah ! que n’étais-je là avec mes Francs ! »
that could be translated by « Shouldn't I was present at this moment with my "Free Warriors"! »

As soon as just like Luis Royo in Malefic Time Apocalypse you understand Wotan/Odin & St Michael Archangel to be the same thing; and you consider it the allegory of Courage/Valour to find inside yourself and between yours rather than some (physically) real winged humanoid, you have a lots of thing getting clear like: the answers of "if God exists, why is there so much evil in the World?" which is "because less people listen to the voice of God telling them to stop evil than people to their desire/fear/hate/laziness making than acting an evil way"
God has infinite power: the power of the whole humanity that grows greater and greater (*)...providing humanity acts in is way.
(*) if you don't believe me, look the progress between the grease torch and the light bulb getting its power from nuclear plant or between stick & stone and GPS guided missile.

What can prove God exists?
The same that can prove
- parents love their children (look how many bad parents are prosecuted for bad treatment)
- wife & husband love each other (how many divorces? beaten wives?)
- justice exists (how many guilty people are not condemned, innocent condemned by error)
- state has authority (how many cops are shot and sometimes killed?)
- youth education can exist (how many teachers are assaulted by their own pupils?)
Just like God, those things just exist because they have a majority of believers thinking they exist.
For "normal" people like me all these thing exist as:
- my parents are not beating me
- I'm not about to divorce
- I have not been "swatted" while playing online game nor taken in a cave as hostage to be sold
- If I punch a cop in the street, I don't have an organisation that will prevent me to get arrested
- my college was not in Columbine

When they become too few in some place, they stop existing in this place (like Syrian government in the middle of ISIS controlled territories while it still exist for Russia)

Therefore I perfectly understand that for people beaten by their parents, raped by militia troopers, shot in their school, rejected by their lover, jailed while innocent... God has ceased to exist and I even think they are fully right to think and say that God doesn't exist (any more where they are) and that like Nietsche says "God is dead"
It would be the same for me but I would, like Job pray for God to exist again to stop that. This means having at least mercy and compassion re-appearing in the heart/soul/mind of people hurting me or to be explained why it happen to be and not my perpetrators who seems to be able to do evil without getting any punishment back.

Thread is being locked due to thread necromancy.