Atheist or Religion?
So what I mean by religion is ALL of them. I also wonder what your opinions are of this topic. Um try not to get too heated ok?
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35 Answers
Do you mean “Are you an atheist or a theist”?
I think I’m neutral on this subject. I don’t follow any religion, but I don’t protest any of them either. To me religions are just set of rules for some people who believe in them. You can choose to follow or not, it’s your choice.
Atheist.
I believe that we could just as easily been manifested as a Gnat, Goldfish or Grapefruit instead of a hominid. No life form has special status, life is life, no favoritism by some mystical being.
Your question is stuck in Dualism, and cannot be answered as such. There is a vast gulf between the absolutes. My answer to your question is “Yes, And…”.
There are atheistic religions—Jainism, for example. And insofar as some Secular Humanists consider their view to be a religion, there may even be religions that embrace metaphysical naturalism (the view most people have in mind when they say “atheism”).
In any case, I am an apatheist. While I do not believe in any gods (non-theism) and also believe that no gods exist (atheism), I don’t really think of myself in these terms. If you could prove to me that some god or another exists, it wouldn’t change much for me because I don’t believe it makes any practical difference whether there are any gods or not.
Whether or not people believe in any gods, and what they think that belief allows them to impose on others, makes quite a bit of practical difference. But belief and existence are not the same thing.
Agnostic with atheist leanings.
Thanks @SavoirFaire… I like that term apatheist.
That could cover a lot of theists as well, I guess. Those that believe in God, but realize/think none of us have true insight into His true intentions.
Well, it’s obvious you are not Jewish. Bunches of Jews are atheists and Jewish. A lot of them are here on Fluther.
If people want to believe in God or not, or belong to a religion or not that’s all fine with me. Just keep it mostly as a private matter. Care about freedom of religion and don’t try to place your religious values on others.
If the term theist refers to the belief in a supreme being that observes and judges us, then I am an atheist. However, if the label God refers to a creative energy that directs physical evolution from the Big Bang (or before it) to the development of a genetic complexity that has led to our ability to be conscious of ourselves and the universe around us, then I am a theist. I believe that one’s conceptual relationship (or lack of it) to a creator is unique, and that proselytizing that belief is abusive; when asked for, sharing and discussing one’s beliefs is appropriate.
Imagine there was a huge religion symposium in which all the religions each had booths and representatives to tell about their their religion. If an intellectually honest person attended each lecture at that event he/she would likely come way thinking that God is one crazy SOB.
I’m not sure what you’re asking here, but I’ll guess. According to many nontheists I’m a theist, and according to many religious people I’m an atheist. I consider myself to be a non-religious deist, but maybe I’m more of a monist since I don’t believe in the concept of an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent supreme entity per se. I don’t think such an entity would had used evolution, if one existed, or if it had the abilities I’d mentioned above.
I’m open to a form of what some would call intelligent evolution, where inevitable order occurs in chaotic situations when given enough time and energy to do so. I figure that both atheists and religious people are right and wrong about certain things, as well as myself. I think that religion was created as a crude way to understand something that’s we’re not advanced enough to understand yet at our current state of evolution. The only thing that I have trouble with is absolutism, not atheism or religion per se.
Do you believe in God, @Paradox25? I can see you don’t believe in the standard version of God, so what version do you accept?
@Dutchess_III To me God is Mind, and nothing else. To me Mind is information, because without information there would be no mind, because mind needs some type of expression or inner-language. I think all of our minds are a part of this consciousness grid, if you want to call it that. Whether I believe in God or not I would suppose would come down to how you define the term, and if your own definition of it fits in with mine. If God isn’t Mind then what is God then (if taking my question seriously in a hypothetical manner)?
Maybe I do believe in the standard version of God, who knows? I’m yet to hear even the most adherent Pentecostal claim that God is some magical bearded old man living in the sky.
All religions lumped in together equals atheism.
Well, @Paradox25 they don’t use those terms…invisible guy in the sky, but that’s inherently what they believe. Some omniscient invisible “he” with a consciousness and an intelligence that controls everything except not everything.
He doesn’t control everything; He doesn’t control me anymore than anyone else on this site, or the world. Controlling things and being in control are two different things.
@Hypocrisy_Central “Controlling things and being in control are two different things.”
Please explain the difference.
I guess he means he’s “in control,” which means he’ll control it if he feels like it. A lot of times he doesn’t feel like it and 500 of children die in a hurricane. But 2 of them lived because of God and His miracles.
And in heaven, god is like “dammit, I missed two of them!”
Really. Does he want us to be in heaven with him, or here on Earth living out our short lives?
@dappled_leaves “Controlling things and being in control are two different things.”
Please explain the difference.
Because it is a question I know at least a few other readers will want to know as well, I will put the cookies on the lower shelf so everyone can reach them (sadly, there will see be some who will). Your parents were in control of your home, as you might over kids you may have now. Just because they were in control of the house, they did not control you, if they did, they would never have need to punish you because you would have always done as they wished in every minute thing. You had free will; you could follow their rules or stay out late and try to sneak in somehow. You had free will to play ball in the house when you shouldn’t have, sometimes nothing happened, other times something would have gotten broken. The way some people try to apply it, if you were horsing around in the house and broke your mom’s favorite lamp, she could have prevented it but somehow directed you, like some tool or puppet, to break the lamp she would be upset that you broke. Things happen in the world because our Lord chose to have a hands-off policy unless you invite him to have an active part. That means just as He will not strike you dead with lightening for lying, He won’t jump in and save the van full of kids from plummeting over the ravine. He is not a genie sitting around for us puny humans to call Him when we need to get out of some funk, then ignoring everything else He desires us to do and for us; He is either going to be a partner in people’s lives, or man is left to be his own god, and man will fix his own crap, since humans think they are so good at that.
@Hypocrisy_Central Well, it sounds like you are defining “in control” differently than some would. Differently than I would, and apparently also differently than @Dutchess_III would (the person to whom you were responding).
Control is an illusion. Even the ability to control one’s actions is limited at best, and though one can control the display of their emotion, controlling one’s feelings in the moment is impossible. However, one can learn to be more sensitive of other’s feelings and understand the basis of their own feelings. In this way, one is directing their development and, in a sense, controls the evolution of their being.
I no longer consider myself to be either an atheist or religious. I was once conservatively religious, though never without doubting. I was once vehemently atheistic, and this for some years I did not doubt. Now I believe that the gods promoted by the world’s major religions are myths (meaning 1) for which the question of truth is irrelevant. The moral is the salient point in any religious teaching, not the events depicted. Most people who read religious texts miss the forest for the trees.
@dappled_leaves I believe in the infinite, though I would hesitate to call this God. But when I say that the question of existence is irrelevant, I mean it is not a sensible question to ask. I can’t respond “no” to the question of existence when I do not agree with the premise of the question.
I’ll admit I haven’t straightened out the swirling ideas in my head into a coherent point of view yet. It’s going to take a great deal more reading and thinking. But I shy away from the term “atheist” at the moment.
@FireMadeFlesh When you say the question is irrelevant, it suggests apatheism. But when you suggest that the question is not sensible, it suggests ignosticism. So if you think the question is irrelevant because it is not sensible, then I recommend reading up on ignosticism and seeing if that brings any coherence to the swirling ideas.
It might not, of course, but it’s still worth looking into.
It is an uncomfortable transition to make. I feel comfortable calling myself an agnostic, which basically means I’m 99% sure God doesn’t exist, but I’ll hang on to 1% as insurance! It’s a chicken’s way out, but that’s ok.
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