Poll: Are you religious?

[The_ModeRazor]

Calvinist here. As in, since I "confirmed" (the stupid ritual they make you do), I'm a member of the calvinist church. I'm also atheistic, and the only reason I agreed, was because the main priest/whatever of said religion in my town also happens to be my godfather.

Religion runs on insane troll logic, and I just really, really fucking hate it. I'm not talking about "yeah, I'm not religious, but each to their own I guess" here, I literally cannot stand the mere fact that someone is religious. Of course I don't talk about that among people. Actually, any sort of spiritualism makes me cringe. It's just... I don't know. Wrong or something.

 

[imnot]

If you really believe death leads to eternal bliss, why are you wearing a seatbelt?

that might just be the best thing anyone's ever posted. I'm putting it on my profile.

The greatest honour ever bestowed upon someone

 

[Bento Box]

See? Here we go. God damn it. Theism and atheism have to do with the belief of whether a god exists or not. I believe there are no gods. I don't know that there are no gods. That means that I am 1: A strong atheist, and 2: agnostic in my atheism. I posted five paragraphs about the meanings of these words two posts above yours. How dare you launch such a careless and uninformed assault on him?

It doesnt change the fact that you still dont understand what the words mean. Being an atheist means you DO NOT believe that there is a god. If you are religious you DO believe their is a god. If you are agnostic you do not believe that there is not enough evidence to say wether or not god exists. If you are agnostic you cant say that god does not exist because that goes against the very definition of what agnostic means.

An atheist also cant say that god may exist because that goes directly against the definition of atheism. Dont use words if you dont know what the fucking mean.

Agnostic

Spoiler

ag·nos·tic   [ag-nos-tik] Show IPA
noun
1.
a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience. Synonyms: disbeliever, nonbeliever, unbeliever; doubter, skeptic, secularist, empiricist; heathen, heretic, infidel, pagan.
2.
a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
3.
a person who holds neither of two opposing positions on a topic: Socrates was an agnostic on the subject of immortality.
adjective
4.
of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism.
5.
asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge.
6.
holding neither of two opposing positions: If you take an agnostic view of technology, then it becomes clear that your decisions to implement one solution or another should be driven by need.

Atheism

Spoiler

a·the·ism   [ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA
noun
1.
the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2.
disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.
Origin:
1580?90; < Greek áthe ( os ) godless + -ism

Actually I know very well what the words mean. You are mistaken, it is entirely possible, and extremely common, for people to be agnostics as well as atheists.

I do not believe in the existence of any gods, therefore I am an atheist.

I'm aware that I cannot know for an absolute certainty that there is no god/s, therefore I am agnostic.

They are not mutually exclusive, one is about belief, the other about knowledge.

Except that there is a difference. One believes that there is no god and the other believes that it is not possible to say if there is a god or not. You cant be both it just does not work. See above.

You're not getting it. Knowledge and belief are not the same thing. "I don't believe" doesn't mean, "I know it isn't true." I don't believe that humanity will ever find a way to turn off gravity -- in fact, I'll even say that I believe we won't, ever. I also don't know that we won't find a way to turn off gravity. Can I make it any simpler?

Agnostic: I don't know. Note that this applies to anything -- I can be agnostic about anything.
Atheist: I don't believe in god.

Further - Weak atheist: I don't believe in god.
Strong atheist: I believe there are no gods.

Both of those statements are about belief. Neither of them are about knowledge.

In either of those cases, I can be wrong and I fucking well acknowledge it, making myself both an atheist and an agnostic. It's interesting that you left the bit about 'skeptic' being a synonym in the definition, since that's exactly what I am.

What you are trying to do, is confuse agnosticism with solipsism, the belief that we can't know anything. Even then it's a fallacy, because, again, even if I did accept that I can't know anything, that doesn't mean I can't believe.

What you're also trying to do is posit 'atheism' as a statement of knowledge, which, as I have explained three times now, it just isn't.

 

[King Toasty]

I am not religious but I am also agnostic (also an atheist). I also am friends with several people who are religious but are also agnostic. I think you need to brush up on what that term actually means.

If you knew what the words agnostic and atheist meant you would know its impossible to be both. How about YOU go brush up on what that term actually means.

Actually I know very well what the words mean. You are mistaken, it is entirely possible, and extremely common, for people to be agnostics as well as atheists.

I do not believe in the existence of any gods, therefore I am an atheist.

I'm aware that I cannot know for an absolute certainty that there is no god/s, therefore I am agnostic.

They are not mutually exclusive, one is about belief, the other about knowledge.

He's right, you can be both. You can also be agnostic polytheist- you believe in multiple gods, but have no proof

I'm an atheist, but I wish I was neo-Greek. Or Norse! Those guys are awesome.

 

[sergnb]

If you really believe death leads to eternal bliss, why are you wearing a seatbelt?

that might just be the best thing anyone's ever posted. I'm putting it on my profile.

The greatest honour ever bestowed upon someone

it's simple.

Christians belife that the current life is just some kind of lobby they have to endure to proof they are worthy.

By transforming more people into christianity and being good, they earn a pass to go to the VIP club.

But cheating is not permited. If you suicide, you are practically saying (ah fuck this shit I want to be in heaven right now). You can't do that because... I don't know why but you can't do that.

And no, I'm not christian, this is just the explanation I got when I asked the exact same question to other christians.

 

[Wuggy]

Except that there is a difference. One believes that there is no god and the other believes that it is not possible to say if there is a god or not. You cant be both it just does not work. See above.

As he said, they aren't mutually exclusive. Those two things do not contradict each other. One can be atheistic in their view by not holding a belief in god and agnostic as they do not claim to know with certainty that a deity does not exist. One can have these two at the same time as one refers to personal belief and other to knowledge. Agnostic atheism is a very real thing. In fact, there is such a thing as agnostic theism as well.

OP: No, I'm not religious. I do not believe in God.

 

[King Toasty]

If you really believe death leads to eternal bliss, why are you wearing a seatbelt?

that might just be the best thing anyone's ever posted. I'm putting it on my profile.

The greatest honour ever bestowed upon someone

it's simple.

Christians belife that the current life is just some kind of lobby they have to endure to proof they are worthy.

By transforming more people into christianity and being good, they earn a pass to go to the VIP club.

But cheating is not permited. If you suicide, you are practically saying (ah fuck this shit I want to be in heaven right now). You can't do that because... I don't know why but you can't do that.

And no, I'm not christian, this is just the explanation I got when I asked the exact same question to other christians.

Reckless endangerment: Heaven's loophole.

 

[DoubleTime]

I don't belong to any mainstream (or really back-stream for that matter) religion. I was Christian in my youth but that was just how I was raised and it didn't mesh with my actual beliefs, so I stopped going to church a LONG time ago. I don't worship the Abrahamic God or follow the tenets of those religions, but I do have my own structured system of spiritual and religious beliefs.

Also, just for the sake of it...

Religious (adj.):

(1) Believing in and worshiping a superhuman controlling power or powers, esp. a personal God or gods.
(2) (of a belief or practice) Forming part of someone's thought about or worship of a divine being.

(This is the definition my dictionary gives me first, and the one I'm using when I use "religious")

 

[Trololo Punk]

Not religious. Naturalist. As for why, religions theories just seem silly and unnecessary.

 

[RobCoxxy]

You know there's a "Religion and Politics" forum right? It's there for a reason. These things tend to go badly in Off-Topic.

Nope. I went to a Church of England Primary school, where they force religion onto you from your first year onwards. I just thought it sounded weird. Then I read up on science. And it explained everything a lot better than the vicar did.

I was religious as child until I spent a year in CoE primary school. I slipped, without noticing, from mildly religious to hardcore atheist.

His Dark Materials might have had something to do with it.

Kinda shames me that while a few of my friends actually thought it was bullshit, for every one of them, three went full on religious-whackjob.

That school claimed my little sister to their numbers as well.

Yes because religion makes people crazy /sarcasm Give me a break, then again my sister was claimed by atheism and hate that as well.

OP: I was not religious i grew up in an atheist household that never pushed anything, was in public school all my life, then when i was around 14? I found the lord Jesus Christ, on my own.

Theres so many atheists where i live and man its annoying, always so hateful for no reason. I've met people who refuse to even be friends or talk with religious people.

I guess in a nutshell i became to believe because at the time i was depressed and lost you could say, the atheist viewpoint was so depressing. I still think it is, i really pitty some viewpoints.

Like it seems in my city theres two things happening, i always see the atheists complaining if there Christian billboards or people going door to door, they hate and try to disprove religion.

It seems when they don't understand is we all do this out of love, imagine you found the most amazing thing or feeling on earth wouldn't you want to share? We do this out of love. The atheists are just doing this to bing us down and out of hate.

Maybe your cities different but myns like this. Just I've never had to deal with a more hateful group of people, not all are like this i know.

The most depressing thing i see is, something will come up in the news or something or some news on science that can be questionable, We go, well thats a little unmoral, atheists:Shut up your halting progress! Morales only get in the way of scientific progress.

I don't want to live in a world where thats accepted by everyone that if you we throw our morales aside we'll progress.

Lol also i HATE how people say "you should say happy holidays" Me and my buddy now say "Merry Christ....mas.

Completely the opposite here, the Christians are everywhere. If they hear you're atheist you get this reaction.


From my experience, most religious folk I ever enter into discussion with are incredibly bigoted and delusional. They terrify me at times.
If you REALLY believe in heaven, and that it's a quadrillion times better than life on earth, why do people wear seatbelts?

And cry when they say "Dad's in a better place?"

 

[Bento Box]

You're not getting it. Knowledge and belief are not the same thing. "I don't believe" doesn't mean, "I know it isn't true." I don't believe that humanity will ever find a way to turn off gravity -- in fact, I'll even say that I believe we won't, ever. I also don't know that we won't find a way to turn off gravity. Can I make it any simpler?

Agnostic: I don't know. Note that this applies to anything -- I can be agnostic about anything.
Atheist: I don't believe in god.

Further - Weak atheist: I don't believe in god.
Strong atheist: I believe there are no gods.

Both of those statements are about belief. Neither of them are about knowledge.

In either of those cases, I can be wrong and I fucking well acknowledge it, making myself both an atheist and an agnostic. It's interesting that you left the bit about 'skeptic' being a synonym in the definition, since that's exactly what I am.

What you are trying to do, is confuse agnosticism with solipsism, the belief that we can't know anything. Even then it's a fallacy, because, again, even if I did accept that I can't know anything, that doesn't mean I can't believe.

What you're also trying to do is posit 'atheism' as a statement of knowledge, which, as I have explained three times now, it just isn't.

What can I say other then you need to learn how to fucking read. I guess you should probably go back to school or something. I want you to read extremely carefully what I am about to say.

An Atheist believes there is no god period. If you have any doubt at all that there might be a god then you are NOT an atheist. An agnostic believes that you cant say wether or not there is a god. So an agnostic person could never ever say he does not believe there is a god which is a 100% requirement to be atheist.


I wont bother replying to anything else you say.

You won't bother, becuase you are embarrassed, or what?

Right after me, there was a brief flood of others explaining to you why belief and knowledge are not the same fucking thing. I bet you're agnostic about the amount of money you have in your checking account right this very instant. Does that mean you believe you have no money in it whatsoever? Or how about, if you don't believe that you have $6,000.00 in it, do you know that your checking account doesn't even exist? Knowledge and belief are completely separate ideas, and if you can't grasp such a simple fact, then frankly I consider it a mercy that you aren't going to respond to this.

 

[Bento Box]

Not religious. Naturalist. As for why, religions theories just seem silly and unnecessary.

You mean naturalist like nature worship, or naturalist like the scientific principle of methodological naturalism?

 

[the spud]

I am pastafarian. All hail the flying spaghetti monster!

In all serious, a really big no. I was raised first baptist, but at around the age of 10 I began to question my beliefs. I don't hate religion, but I do believe the world would be a better place without it. The thing that really gets to me is that here in the buttcrack of the universe (Tennessee) anybody who isn't Christian is ostracized. I still haven't "come out of the closet" on my religion.

 

[Wuggy]

What can I say other then you need to learn how to fucking read. I guess you should probably go back to school or something. I want you to read extremely carefully what I am about to say.

Why are you being so hostile about this to him? He's right and you're wrong, you should learn when to stay down.

An Atheist believes there is no god period.

That, or an atheist does not hold the belief. However you want to put it.

If you have any doubt at all that there might be a god then you are NOT an atheist.

And here's where you go wrong. Belief and belief of knowledge are not the same thing. He explained this in fine detail. An atheist doesn't necessarily say "there is no god". Some prefer "I don't believe in a god", "I believe there is no god" or even "I believe that the existence of a god is so unlikely that I do not see a reason to believe in one". Hell, an atheist can say "I don't believe there is a god, but I can't be sure."

These are all atheistic standpoints.

If you want to argue this point, you should come up with some sort of reference. Otherwise arguing with you is like arguing with a brick wall.

An agnostic believes that you cant say wether or not there is a god.

That definition is a bit off. An agnostic thinks that there is no way to acquire knowledge of god. I.e. no one can say for sure whether there is a god or not.

So an agnostic person could never ever say he does not believe there is a god which is a 100% requirement to be atheist.

Yes they could. Just because one hold the standpoint of "we can't know one way or the other" doesn't mean they can't have an opinion on the matter.

 

[That_Sneaky_Camper]

I find there to be a difference between religion and an actual relationship with the God that you choose to worship. Religion is just the rituals and the social gatherings around your God, a person can go to Church and still not truly believe or love the God that their religion represents. That is why I don't rely on religion to tell me how I should worship or love my God, so in that sense I am not religious but since that is a controversial point of view and everyone who claims to believe in a God needs a religion I'll just answer the question. I am a Christian.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Proud Muslim here.
I saw something on Discovery Channel once where they said said that a priest said that if you look at a watch you would see that it is perfect for what it does so it must have been made by someone and can not simply appear out of nowhere and an atheist(I think Darwin) replied that a clock can be perfected and changed and adapted to support his theory of evolution and the show went on to show a species of birds that have adapted to do different things in different environments. All the business about adapting is well and good but that still does not explain how the watch got there and how it was able to adapt, it only explains why it adapted.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Proud Muslim here.
I saw something on Discovery Channel once where they said said that a priest said that if you look at a watch you would see that it is perfect for what it does so it must have been made by someone and can not simply appear out of nowhere and an atheist(I think Darwin) replied that a clock can be perfected and changed and adapted to support his theory of evolution and the show went on to show a species of birds that have adapted to do different things in different environments. All the business about adapting is well and good but that still does not explain how the watch got there and how it was able to adapt, it only explains why it adapted.

Please don't start an evolution debate. You really, really don't want to do that.