Outline your beliefs.

Some persons are sure to hesitate to put their personal beliefs out there, to avoid having them attacked by ones who disagree. I thought of this before posting yesterday, but there are so few among us stating my point of view, I have to say it loud and often. I urge all to come forth, no matter which side of the fence you sit, or if you straddle it like some people who are here nameless, and let your viewpoint be known. I promise not to laugh.

I believe that nature will keep naturing, and humans will keep on wondering why.

Yeah, right. That's a pretty potent threat and probably worth a thread unto itself -- the power of laughter.

I call myself an atheist, but Edgar's and Frank's tiff made me reassess. After some contemplation, I will assert that I am an atheist. I do not believe in gods. I admit that I do not know if there are supernatural beings but, the point is, I do not believe so.

I really think Doks approach was a most excellent idea Ted.

I already have learned several surprising things about some regular posters.

When I would try to dechipher what some would be saying on threads in the past, being a Bear of very little Brain, at times I couldn't even tell what side of the fence they were on.

I find this thread very helpful.

Frank, Edgar & Intrepid......you boys stop it right now.

I for one am really not in the mood for your incessant arguing.....if you want to fight, go over to someone elses house.

Doktor S asked us to outline our beliefs, nothing more, nothing less.

Say your piece, then let others say theirs, before this becomes all about you three yet again.

I love your guys, but enough is enough.

OK?

OK!

Take a look back, chai tea. You will be able to see we already moved beyond our little tiff.

Yes Edgar, I had already noticed that before posting....

My post was so that you 3 wouldn't get started up again, which is what usually happens.

Now let's let others outline their beliefs without thinking it's going to start another dumb fight.

carry on....

Woo - I'm frightened.

Since a "belief" is merely a guess about something unknown...I'm not sure why anyone would hesitate on that account.




There is absolutely no "straddling" being done by the agnostics in this question....except in the minds of people who have their minds solidly closed shut.

If a person says "I do not know the reality of existence...so I cannot claim there are gods or that there are no gods involved...and there really is no unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess"...

...that is not "straddling" any fence.

That is a very forthright rendering of the truth for the person making the statement.

For the people who want to pretend there is enough evidence for a God to assert THERE IS A GOD...

...and for the people who want to pretend there is enough evidence that NO GODS EXIST....

...go with it.

If making guesses...and pretending they are more than guesses makes you happy...wonderful.


But knock off the horseshyt about people with the integrity and sense of honesty to acknowledge they do not know the stuff they do not know...are some kind of fence straddlers.

(Aside to the theists here involved: Mostly this kind of horseshyt comes from the atheists...your mirror counterparts. But I gotta cover all bases or for sure someone will cry "prejudice.")




No one is laughing at your silly beliefs either, Edgar. So best you don't.


The theists are offering their guesses about the REALITY of existence. Their guess is that there is a GOD or gods involved. It is a wild guess based on damn near nothing.

Your guess about the REALITY of existence is that there are no gods. It is a wild guess based on damn near nothing.

I have no idea of why you think your guess is so damn superior to their's...but it isn't! Not by a long shot.

Chai Tea gonna have your ass in a sling, Frank. I will not further hijack the thread, except to state that your version of honesty and integrity, while sincere and well meant is horseshit.

All we know of the world is gathered through our five senses and the technologies we have developed to extend those senses. Our understanding of the world is arrived at through inductive logic built from information derived through out five senses.

I cannot state with certainty that the Easter Bunny does not exist. I cannot state with certainty that the Tooth Fairy does not exist. Frank always has the problem of ascribing to the question of a deity an importance which he will not ascribe to the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny. I don't know that no gods exist--it is, however, sufficiently implausible that i acribe to it the same likelihood as that of the existence of any other imaginary but putatively real creature. Therefore, i consider myself a functional atheist, based on the derivative meaning of the word. I am without god.

That should have been derived from our five senses,

How out got in there stumps me.

The "r" and the "t" are right next to one another on an American "qwerty" keyboard. Or, alternatively, the Devil made you do it.

Well great.

Now we'll never find out what anyone elses belief system is....

round and round and round she goes....

I believe I'm gonna go get my car washed.

Bye.

I believe I'll have another drink.....

You want horseshyt, Edgar...read the crap you are posting.

Chai Tea,

Strange how you lumped a believer, an agnostic and an atheist together. Perhaps this was meant to be. I'm not fighting, I agreed with Frank and even agreed with Edgarblythe when he called us poopy heads. They seem to be at odds right now. I will pray for them.

The question being dealt with is not really...is there a GOD or are there no gods...but rather..

...what is the REALITY of existence.

I do not know what the REALITY is.

I do not have anywhere enough evidence to include or exclude a supernatural explanation for it.

I don't think you or Edgar...or any of the other theists and atheists have either.

The word agnostic has as solid an etymology as does atheist....and atheists do not own the world of "I do not believe in gods" just because of its etymological derivation.

Fact is there was a day when atheists honestly were atheists. They denied the existence of gods. Nowadays...most atheists take that back door...that they are merely people who do not actively "believe" in a god and are not asserting there are no gods.

I grant Edgar does go that further distance...and asserts there are no gods.

Edgar is like a theist...spouting his guesses about the unknown as though dispensing a truth.

You...well, you, Set...are merely an agnostic who apparently hasn't got the guts to acknowledge that you are.

Once again I agree with you Intrepid.

Atheists and theists should be lumped together...they both being believers, albeit, believers in opposite things.

Agnostics stand alone...acknowledging they do not know and being unwilling to make guesses and use words like "believe" to the disguise the fact that they are guesses.

What's the difference between a skeptical agnostic, a functional atheist and this Asimovian quote (not much if any AFAICT)

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." (Isaac Asimov / 1920-1992)

"To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition."
(Woody Allen / born in 1935 / Stardust Memories, 1980)

"An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support."
(John Buchan, British author and statesman / 1875-1940)

"If there were no God, there would be no Atheists."
(G. K. Chesterton / 1874-1936 / Where All Roads Lead, 1922)

"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, "Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?""
(Quentin Crisp / 1908-1999)

"The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation."
(Emma Goldman / 1869-1940)

"If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion."
(Edmond and Jules de Goncourt / respectively 1822-1896 an 1830-1870 / Notebook / January 24, 1868)

"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
(Don Hirschberg)

"All children are atheists - they have no idea of God."
(Paul-Henri, baron d'Holbach / 1723-1789)

"America's pluralistic ideal does not protect atheism; public support for different belief systems is matched by intolerance of disbelief. According to surveys published in the early 1980s, before today's pre-millennial religious revivalism, nearly 70 percent of all Americans agreed that the freedom to worship "applies to all religious groups, regardless of how extreme their beliefs are"; but only 26 percent agreed that the freedom of atheists to make fun of God and religion "should be legally protected no matter who might be offended." Seventy-one percent held that atheists "who preach against God and religion" should not be permitted to use civic auditoriums. Intolerance for atheism was stronger even than intolerance of homosexuality."
(Wendy Kaminer / The Last Taboo /1996)

"Atheists generate about as much sympathy as pedophiles. But, while pedophilia may at least be characterized as a disease, atheism is a choice, a willful rejection of beliefs to which vast majorities of people cling."
(Wendy Kaminer / The Last Taboo /1996)

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
(Stephen Roberts)

"The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank."
(Dante Gabriel Rossetti / 1828-1882)

"My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants of their human interests."
(George Santayana / 1863-1952)

"There are two kinds of existentialist; first, those who are Christian...and on the other hand the atheistic existentialists, among whom...I class myself. What they have in common is that they think that existence precedes essence, or, if you prefer, that subjectivity must be the turning point."
(Jean-Paul Sartre / 1905-1980)

"I'ma born-again atheist."
(Gore Vidal / born 1925)
http://atheisme.free.fr/Quotes/Atheist.htm