Except, maybe, religions that teach otherwise?
If that were true apes and other atheists wouldn't survive.
Who come first the theist or the atheist
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Except, maybe, religions that teach otherwise?
If that were true apes and other atheists wouldn't survive.
Except, maybe, religions that teach otherwise?
And how is that an example of not believing one's life matters?
Buddhists practice precisely because they believe their happiness matters.
There are many levels of religion.
What does that mean -
"belief in god(s)"
and
"to have no belief in god(s)"?
How can you and others observe this in your life?
This is hardly "just semantics"!
As I noted above, a "belief in God" or "lack of belief in God" strike me as very abstract.
I do beliebe that whatever we feel, think, say and do has some bearing on "how things really are."
I do not believe that we, what we feel, think, say and do, are alien in this Universe.
And if we are not alien, then there has to be something to us and what we feel, think, say and do. Our currrent understanding of it might not be the absolute truth, but it is something relevant.
There are Buddhists who would say their sole purpose is to return to their Buddha Nature. I'm not sure how you calculate this under your proposition.
Other religions too would disavow happiness or survival. Ascetics of every stripe.
Aqueous Id said:
As there are many levels of apes and other atheists, who survive by means unrelated to religion, and for whom the idea that life matters may never materialize, or, if it does, it comes without associating to your proposition.
Yes it is. You are doing what atheists refer to as "conversion by definition".
You are twisting the meanings of god, religion, belief, etc so much so that everyone can be considered a believer, followerer and a theist.
Lol.
You're so paranoid as to not want to have anything to do with the mere word "religion," no matter what it may refer to.
Lol.
You're so paranoid as to not want to have anything to do with the mere word "religion," no matter what it may refer to.
I am that in the same sense you are paranoid to have nothing to do with ufology.
Religion means a specific thing - an institutionalised tradition system which accepts the idea of a god.
If you then stretch the definition to include almost anyone - including apes [as you did] - anyone will be just as paranoid about that definition as you would if I were to call you a psuedoscientist.
But you cant accept that, because that takes away your central arguement - that religion is good and is the only available source of the said 'good'.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Precisely, because determining whether Dywyddyr was right in saying that people either believe or don't believe in god(s) and that there's no middle ground, depends on everyone agreeing about what the word "god(s)" means and on the precise boundaries of what does and doesn't conform to the definition.
My examples were meant to show that it's entirely possible for somebody to deny the existence of some versions of "god" (the Biblical or Quranic God for example) while accepting at least the possibility of others (an ultimate ontological ground or source perhaps).
In other words, there's considerable ambiguity in the situation that an either-or atheist/theist account doesn't capture. Both theists and atheists probably need to be a little more explicit about precisely what it is that they are affirming or denying.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Traditionally Buddhists have believed that a birth as a human is a very auspicious thing, since enlightenment is easier for humans than for many other sorts of sentient being. So human life is religiously important and not something to be wasted.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Wynn said:
I certainly wasn't trying to convert anyone to anything, except greater philosophical sophistication perhaps. I have no problem with Dywyddyr being an atheist. I think that I agree with him on that, by and large. I just disagreed with the idea that everyone is either an atheist or a theist and that there's no middle ground.
"Twisting the meanings"? That suggests that there's a correct definition of all of these words that one either adheres to or rejects. Sometimes dictionaries give that impression, but they are just reporting on the most common usages of the English language words in what are historically Christian societies. So effectively, that's privileging Christianity by treating its understandings and definitions as if they were definitive.
I just think that when people announce that they are 'theists' or 'atheists', it's often helpful if they explain in a little more detail precisely what it is that they are affirming or denying.
Oftentimes people end up talking right past each other because they are using the same words to express very different ideas. They may seem to agree when they fundamentally disagree, or they may think that they violently disagree when they are actually pretty much in agreement.
Absolutely.
Buddhism in 3 words.
I know more about ascetics than you think.
The apes and other atheists, as I was saying, would not survive, were they dependent upon religion for survival as you propound.
Further, survival was worked out for billions of years before humans arrived and imposed unrealistic models, like religion, onto the immutably real world.
As to your post #2 positing that theism precedes atheism, not likely. Animism precedes theism, and preceding animism is the absence of superstition altogether, a state which has the meaning implied by atheism. The name given to this meaning, the one we use, happens to have handed down from the Greeks, but the true meaning is somewhat lost to us. Consider Plato's account of the trial of Socrates:
I mean the latter - that you are a complete atheist.
That is an extraordinary statement, Meletus. Why do you say that? Do you mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or moon, which is the common creed of all men?
I assure you, judges, that he does not believe in them; for he says that the sun is stone, and the moon earth.
That is an extraordinary statement, Meletus. Why do you say that? Do you mean that I do not believe in the godhead of the sun or moon, which is the common creed of all men?
I assure you, judges, that he does not believe in them; for he says that the sun is stone, and the moon earth.
I suppose, if all collapses under the epistemology du juor, this would be the terminus of all inquiry. I, for one, hate empty bus stations.
Or, we look at the ancient cultures who put this yoke on the world.
They were animists first. Now define atheism in that context.
One cannot argue with an enlightened person.
Good then we can continue.
Animism precedes theism. Socrates is identified as an atheist in an animist setting.
Oh no.