Kevin's Watch

Zeph,
Outstanding work. Your recent posts are thoughtful and respectful. Your points regarding the role of free-will in religious belief are excellent. I also happen to agree with you.

Darth,
Do you consider yourself Athiestic or Agnostic?

Brinn wrote:Darth,
Do you consider yourself Athiestic or Agnostic?

Depends, what do they mean?

An atheist believes that there is no God. An agnostic suspends judgment based upon the belief that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial.

I, personally, am of the belief that there was never any evidence from which the concept of God should have originated... Does that have a name, or is it atheism?

I don't think it's a defining characteristic of either school. Are you willing to entertain the idea that God may exist?

Murrin wrote:I, personally, am of the belief that there was never any evidence from which the concept of God should have originated... Does that have a name, or is it atheism?

That has no name I'm aware of, Murrin - but it sounds to me like atheism.
I have declared myself an atheist on this forum, and for a long time I was.
(and I was also a theist for a long time.)
Then some time ago I read a quote that has stuck with me , though the woman's name has not. (I hope maybe someone can help me with it)anyway the quote is:

An atheist declaring there is no god is as foolish as a theist declaring that there is.

What I think she meant was that such a huge thing is beyond anything we can know or understand.
So really I'm agnostic, I couldn't possibly know if there is a god or not.
Just for the record:
An atheist believes there is no god.
A theist believes not only that god exists, but that he interacts with his creation. i.e. miracles, talking, etc.
A deist believes that a god created the universe, but does not interfere with the natural actions he set in motion.

I guess I'd be a deist then.

Zephalephelah wrote:

Darth Revan wrote:I wish I could believe in God, but I don't. And I'm not hopeless about when I die. I'm 17 and really can be bothered do think about what happens after I die. i'll think about it in 30 years

Not to be judgmental, because I'm talking about myself, but when I was 17 I thought I was the anti-christ. So did Sting, while filming "Dune", maybe that's why he gave his villian a good performance. I enjoyed horror movies, pentagrams, spells, and said God Dammit and did a lot of bad things. I did a lot of drugs and beat a lot of people up and I didn't have a job either.

But since you are 17, you have a long time to think about it, should you have the common luck to live quite a while longer. So, I'm just asking you to think about it.

I agree, totaly.

birdandbear wrote:I guess I'd be a deist then.

Actually, B&B, you're in esteemed company! Many of the people(mostly men, considering the era) who are responsible for the American government were deists. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Thomas Paine,(just to name a few) and many others did not believe that god left an autobiography behind. Hence the reference to Nature's god... the Creator... with no mention of a specific religion or god, in their most earth shaking proclamations, though many if not most people would call themselves christian at that time. A testament to their Brillance, IMO.

Call me a solipsist.

OK, u're a solipsist!

Darth Revan wrote:Was it the Big Bang? In that case, how did the Big Bang come about? Was it God? - IMO it wasn't. Have you got any other theories to how time came to exist. What do you think happened at the beginning of time?

Well from what I hear it had to do with archs of time, flying children, some guy that put loads of bad thingys under some mountain, and a worm or word that contradicts everything previously stated. I wasn't really paying attention to be honest.

Yoda as Thomas Covenant: 'Touch me, not.'

LOL And the relavence of that comment is...?

absolutely none!

The way for humankind is not back after all. There is no return to simplicity this way. No true halla. I used to think of halla as a kind of perfect harmony of flowers and sunlight and good clean life and death out on the sparkling snow. A perfect balance that life might someday achieve - without war, without disease, without madness, without asteroids and wild stars that can annihilate ten thousand species of animals almost overnight. But no. The universe is not made this way. True halla is the vastening of life. The deepening into new forms and possibilities that we call evolution. ~Danlo in The Broken God

I don't believe that God exists, but if he/she/it does, then I would hope that he/she/it would not be so petty as to have required me to follow a dogma which has been altered and administered by humans.

It would seem a sick and cruel God to plunk me into eternal suffering because I did not massage her/his/its ego, even though I have lived a good life.

Dromond wrote:Then some time ago I read a quote that has stuck with me , though the woman's name has not. (I hope maybe someone can help me with it)anyway the quote is:

An atheist declaring there is no god is as foolish as a theist declaring that there is.

What I think she meant was that such a huge thing is beyond anything we can know or understand.

I think what she meant is that saying "There is no god" is a positive statement. Yes, it's about a negative, but still a positive statement. You're making an assertion, just as when you say "There is a god." If it's a fact that there is no god, then you must know of some evidence or logic that rules out the possibility. Simply saying, "Well, where's proof that God exists" is insufficient to say "There is no god," since such proof could turn up any minute.

Dromond wrote:So really I'm agnostic, I couldn't possibly know if there is a god or not.

I'll go along with that.

Religion has always been a method for cultures to maintain the status quo. The safest way to keep things static is apply terrible religious repurcussions for opposing thought. It keeps people from actually thinking and forces them to just believe in many cases.

Ah!!! Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice, danlo!!