Open Minded Agnostic Atheist

[zaangalewa]

Scientology is a criminal organisation - nothing else.

Yes, you were wrong the first time. You just resist because you don't like these myths being put on the same shelf as your preferred myths.

Scientology is a criminal organisation - nothing else.

 

[Meriweather]

Best git 'em while they're really young and gullible!

Really? Is that why we encourage children to play sports? That if we don't start them when they are young and gullible, we may not have adults playing professional sports?

 

[Meriweather]

Long before we prayed to the Son of God we were praying to the Sun. To me that makes sense. At night you would pray for it to come back as lions or bears ate your loveones at night and because it was cold without the sun. And if you were bad it got really hot and a drought came. Even today I pray and worship the sun. It gives us life and without it, we're done.

This is a description of people praying to a physical object to keep them from physical harm.

Today, many people of faith are more focused on spiritual health and spiritual behavior. We are praying for things beyond our physical needs. Do you believe ancient people prayed to the sun about other non-physical issues?

 

[BreezeWood]

Reading the C.S. Lewis criticism of a non-Christian and non-“religious” spirituality, that “sort of vague belief in a higher power or impersonal ‘force’” (comment #57), and some other comments here as well, reminded me of mythologist and philosopher Joseph Campbell, and his popular slogan: “Follow your bliss.”

Campbell was a pretty smart guy who had studied many religions and argued that the we ought think of belief in “God” or gods not as a way to understand the meaning of life, but more as a way to experience life more deeply. Skipping across epochs and geography and religions, he in the end offered a modern slant on the question, implying that while it was certainly silly to hang around “Waiting for Godot,” it is still possible to find our own bliss. The “way” to that bliss would of course be different for the scholar, the warrior, the artist, the doctor, but it was there waiting for us. This of course seemed predicated on our having more real life choices than many in the world. It also, and here is what bothered me, seemed to leave us without any guides to morality or even “social consolation.”

After all, except for movies and the modern dream machine in all its facets, except for rock concerts and spectator sports, or maybe the low thrills of tribal identity found in politics, where do we find that collective experience of being alive and part of something larger than ourselves? In the real world of today, we see old nationalism dragging us back to a sort of primitive collective consolation, as some find in MAGA, and others find in the progressive pursuit of more and more money. These have become for many a “way” to collective or personal bliss.

Even the transcendental consolation we may experience renewing our peace of mind or recharging our “spirits” when walking in the woods, or working in our gardens, or off on our boat, only make us happy. They don’t give us what C.S. Lewis seems arrogantly to aspire to — “eternal life.”

Even the transcendental consolation we may experience renewing our peace of mind or recharging our “spirits” when walking in the woods, or working in our gardens, or off on our boat, only make us happy. They don’t give us what C.S. Lewis seems arrogantly to aspire to — “eternal life.”

.
eternal life: T-Rex lasted several million years before extinction something must have passed down through the years they were all physiological replicas ... sad to think the spiritual content went with them as well or in the end the last vestige of life will also just disappear.

for some from antiquity Sabbath is a perfect completion - and is the ability of the spiritual content of physiology during its active time to come to a new completion that if approvable (perfect) is physiologically incorporated and will enhance the being for future generations - so life stages can be completed, crossing the void as columbus to find land on the other side.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

We live in a physical world. God is spirit. What physical evidence is expected to materialize?

None. Spirit is a magical idea. No evidence for or against magic can be found, by definition.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Scientology is a criminal organisation - nothing else.

zaangalewa want a cracker?

 

[Grumblenuts]

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein

If that's an actual Einstein quote it's a highly ironic one, him having seriously doubted much of his own theory to the bitter end. And for good reason. Aside from help ushering in the modern nuclear (war) age, his biggest error was his fickle rejection of the so-called "luminiferous aether", seemingly because he suddenly found it unnecessary - reportedly thanks to the Michelson-Morley's experiments, but that's long been exposed as BS. The Aether was practically everyone's "simple as possible, but not simpler" every day understanding of Nature's background firmament prior, including his own.

Anyways.. here's a pertinent slice: {keying off his old 'God does not play dice' chestnut}:

The stage was thus set for one of the most remarkable debates in the entire history of science, as Bohr and Einstein went head-to-head on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. It was a clash of two philosophies, two conflicting sets of metaphysical preconceptions about the nature of reality and what we might expect from a scientific representation of this. The debate began in 1927, and although the protagonists are no longer with us, the debate is still very much alive.

And unresolved.

I don’t think Einstein would have been particularly surprised by this. In February 1954, just 14 months before he died, he wrote in a letter to the American physicist David Bohm: ‘If God created the world, his primary concern was certainly not to make its understanding easy for us.’

 

[Grumblenuts]

Best git 'em while they're really young and gullible!

Really? Is that why we encourage children to play sports? That if we don't start them when they are young and gullible, we may not have adults playing professional sports?

No and, rather than offer this lame comparison of apples to oranges, ignoring the comment altogether would have been a smarter move.

 

[Meriweather]

No and, rather than offer this lame comparison of apples to oranges, ignoring the comment altogether would have been a smarter move.

If you are unaware, many parents include their children in family activities such as sports, games, prayers, gardening, and chores. When the child leaves the nest leaves ample time to either embrace or discard activities introduced in their childhood. Such are family values.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

There is no purpose to life.

No and, rather than offer this lame comparison of apples to oranges, ignoring the comment altogether would have been a smarter move.

If you are unaware, many parents include their children in family activities such as sports, games, prayers, gardening, and chores. When the child leaves the nest leaves ample time to either embrace or discard activities introduced in their childhood. Such are family values.

The difference, of course, being that children aren't gardening under a magical threat of eternal suffering.

 

[Grumblenuts]

Can you really have a lack of belief in something that exists?

Agnostic atheists acknowledge the possibility that gods exist, on the basis that they cannot be ruled out. Not that they do exist. Else they would be theists.

Theists don't exist. Jews, Chistians, Muslims, Buddhists and so on exist. And agnosticism is a philosophy. The belief in god or the belief in atheism is a spiritual belief. Indeed are the most Christians agnostics ("I believe in god") and the most atheists are not agnostics ("I know god is not existing, because there is no prove for god.").

I would say most theists will admit the stories about rising from the dead aren't literal stories and I'm sure most atheists will admit they are really agnostic atheists.

So most people don't take the bible literally and most atheists don't claim to know for sure.

Again, atheists have no need to self-identity as agnostic, they are so by default. So "Agnostic atheist" is just being redundant. If my American Atheists link wasn't convincing enough for a Canadian, read it from Atheist Alliance International:

Atheism is very simple, yet widely misunderstood. The word atheism comprises the word theism with the prefix ‘a’. So let’s break it down. Theism is the belief in a god or gods. The prefix ‘a’ means; ‘without’ or ‘lack of’. Therefore, atheism means ‘without a belief in a god or gods’ or the ‘lack of a belief in a god or gods’.

We often hear theists say, “If you don’t believe in God, you must believe God does not exist!” but this is simply wrong. Lacking a belief in a god does not entail believing that no gods exist. A person could reasonably say she doesn’t know if any gods exist, and there are none that she currently believes in.

{...-Much More-}

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Again, atheists have no need to self-identity as agnostic, they are so by default. So "Agnostic atheist" is just being redundant.

Exactly. Gnostic Atheism is the special case of atheism. Just as square is the special case of rectangle. We don't call rectangles "nonsquare rectangles".

 

[Meriweather]

The difference, of course, being that children aren't gardening under a magical threat of eternal suffering.

People who grow up in some denominations think all children grew up under this threat. In fact, I never did, nor do most children in the major denominations. I have heard three sermons on hell in my entire life. Hell is not a focus--or even a concern--for many of us. We choose to go a different route.

 

[Grumblenuts]

No and, rather than offer this lame comparison of apples to oranges, ignoring the comment altogether would have been a smarter move.

If you are unaware, many parents include their children in family activities such as sports, games, prayers, gardening, and chores. When the child leaves the nest leaves ample time to either embrace or discard activities introduced in their childhood. Such are family values.

Oh, thanks. Not to mention the entire rest of reality.. that I failed to mention for some reason..

 

[ding]

I am totally open to the idea that god is real I just don’t believe any religions are real. I like debating with theists who agree religions are man made up. I agree the universe and this planet are amazing. And it seems like it’s too perfect and there has to be some higher power. But we know so little still. Maybe there are other universes? Maybe there was is or will be life around every star eventually. Maybe not as advance as us but maybe more. And maybe the spirit lives on forever after you die. Just seems like wishful thinking to me. But I hope so. These are unknowable things.

So far I see no evidence of god and I don’t believe one exists. Everything can be explained scientifically. What can’t, may never be known. Those gaps aren’t god.

Stop kidding yourself. You aren't open minded. Your first move is to always argue against the existence of God. I have never once seen you have an honest discussion.

Want me to prove it?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

People who grow up in some denominations think all children grew up under this threat.

Probably most children. I know i went to a moderate lutheran church and i heard it all the time.

Putting me under the watch of a man (our pastor) who threatened me to believe every word or suffer forever was a form of child abuse. Luckily i already was fairly well educated and laughed these threats off.

 

[ding]

There is no purpose to life.

No and, rather than offer this lame comparison of apples to oranges, ignoring the comment altogether would have been a smarter move.

If you are unaware, many parents include their children in family activities such as sports, games, prayers, gardening, and chores. When the child leaves the nest leaves ample time to either embrace or discard activities introduced in their childhood. Such are family values.

The difference, of course, being that children aren't gardening under a magical threat of eternal suffering.

Neither am I. That's just a rationalization you have manufactured for yourself.

 

[ding]

I know i went to a moderate lutheran church and i heard it all the time.

I seriously doubt that. You aren't being rational.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

I seriously doubt that.

So what? You aren't credible. Yes, in fact, our pastor was very adamant about this. As it turns out, it is doctrine. Now go on, try to gaslight everyone for 10 pages, because you are uncomfortable. I will leave you to it.

 

[Meriweather]

Probably most children. I know i went to a moderate lutheran church and i heard it all the time.

Putting me under the watch of a man (our pastor) who threatened me to believe every word or suffer forever was a form of child abuse. Luckily i already was fairly well educated and laughed these threats off.

Were you taught anything that had little or nothing to do with hell that had a positive effect on how you live your life?