At a certain point you have to start talking in terms of something greater than caricatures of religion or the philosophy (if you can call it that) peddled by jehovah's witnesses.
Theists in severe decline.
- Thread starter Xelasnave.1947
- Start date
Call yourself a church and you don't take advantage of the gulible????
Not even worthy of calling yourself a pew
I think it's quite unreasonable to believe that the universe was made for us because the evidence shows that it's clearly not.
Fact is the universe is pretty hostile to life and we can't even leave this damn planet and go someplace else.
As long as we're responding to caricatures like you and Jan Ardena, that's hard to do. When you're talking to a duck, you have to quack.
Then a lot of dictionaries and textbooks and so forth will need correction.
You'll have to tell the Navajo, for example, that they don't have a religion - only a "quasi" religion. (You would have company - there are Navajo thinkers who have taken that stance after being raised in missionary schools).
You see ritual, prayer, worship, monks and shamans and spiritual leaders, dedicated buildings and shrines and sacred places or objects, established social norms and traditions for dealing with the spiritual aspect of human life and the world, and you don't see religion?
Most people - including the body of speakers who determine the meanings of English words - do.
That's a ways off. We're still dealing with guys like you and Jan.
How can you co-opt what is naturally human? Are those who espouse religion not human?
Your invidious remarks don't grant you a "we" status.
No doubt you see it as a tough job, but someone has to do it, eh?
Further evidence that you struggle to take discussion points beyond caricature.
I think you would first have to stop using strawmen to argue against atheism.
Look at how they did it, and still do it where not prevented.
If it's hard to see, maybe extend from an easy example such as marriage.
1) Not "religion" - theistic religion, especially Abrahamic, was specified for a reason directly thread-relevant.
2) This is a very interesting response, because it is apparently sincere (not Jan-style trolling) and at the same time gets the post it is responding to backwards* in a manner (the leading or "Fox" question) typical of Abrahamic theists on science forums - including the current trolls.
This suggests that it is the religious stance itself producing the bizarrely wrongheaded and gibberish posts, not the character flaws typical of trolls and only coincidently overt Abrahamic theist. (There remains the dominating personal disparagement feature, absent from the sincere).
*(The implication of my post was that these theistic religions act to absorb or take over these competing ways of addressing spiritual matters, if possible restricting this natural human stuff to overtly religious people acting in the context of the one religion,
so that those demonstrating allegiance to that religion and dedicating their stuff to that religion were favored, while those not religious were suppressed - sometimes quite brutally, now as well as in the past.
so that all great art and music and so forth would be in accordance with, reifying, and seen to be emerging from, that religion;
and no widely influential human address of spirituality would be separate from and not found in that religion ("Christian rock", etc).
So the question should be "Are those who do not espouse theistic religion not human?")
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My strawman being?
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
And you dont think there is any need to address it at this level?
Alex
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
Look this is a disussion with theism a central theme and thefore there is no need for evidence.☺
Claims may be made and established on the basis that they feel good☺
But you certainly make a compelling case for the possibility it was not just created for humans...who would have thought☺
Alex
Not needed
Did you not understand I invoked Humpty Dumpty?
Correct
However I really fail to follow the logic of people who do not believe in any god(s), quasi or otherwise, can be said to belong to a religion
The above refers to those for some reason class atheists as belonging to a religion
Sure some take part in rituals as a personal activity as I guess they have some thoughts about a higher power (But not a god)
Personal view - sure there is a higher power
In scientific language called physics and not a single puny human minion has ever broken one of the rules
Xelasnave.1947
Valued Senior Member
Never the less I think religion holds things together for many and I for one should not focus on the negatives as all organisations will have their problems and really what can you do to curb the desire of any group to expand its base.
Preach peace and harmony and positive virtues but dont expect to have others accept your world view and all will be fine.
I wonder ....
Atheists dont believe any one has established a God and probably think wider than say a believer who knows there is only one God...theirs...so all the others never get thought of...but I guess to a degree to an atheist they just have one more on the list that they dont accept.
So Jan possibly will reject Thor and the rest of them as say I would but stops at that approach when he goes to analyse his God.
Thats what people do...they have their reasons.
So theists could be 99.9 % atheist when you think of the large number of Gods they dont beleive in.
Anyways Jan and Musica seem like nice people so perhaps we should all look for things we agree on...could that be so difficult☺
Alex
Preach peace and harmony and positive virtues but dont expect to have others accept your world view and all will be fine.
I wonder ....
Atheists dont believe any one has established a God and probably think wider than say a believer who knows there is only one God...theirs...so all the others never get thought of...but I guess to a degree to an atheist they just have one more on the list that they dont accept.
So Jan possibly will reject Thor and the rest of them as say I would but stops at that approach when he goes to analyse his God.
Thats what people do...they have their reasons.
So theists could be 99.9 % atheist when you think of the large number of Gods they dont beleive in.
Anyways Jan and Musica seem like nice people so perhaps we should all look for things we agree on...could that be so difficult☺
Alex
Sure.
Defeating a caricature of an idea just renders one's self as a caricature.
With angry, petulant, fact-free positions like that - no wonder theists are in severe decline.
Specifically?
IIRC it was you who was trying to tie an egyptian polytheistic connection to christianity and spouting some revelation about the Buddhist God, Brahma.
If you find yourself on the receiving end of anger and ridicule, its because you frequently grant your self a license to be fact-free. And, quite frankly, that has zero relevance you being atheist, theist or anything in between. Perhaps you could say it reflects on on-site atheism as a creed, since there is a tendency for poor performance in history and philosophy.