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knorke wrote:lol religion discussion camouflaged as religion discussion discussion

And now it's religion discussion camouflaged as religion discussion discussion discussion!
you will obey your god Nemppu

SinbadEV wrote:Please provide me the word for someone who believes, based on the lack of scientific evidence proving the existence of God, that there is no God so I can start use it in place of "Faith in Atheism".

The standard theist patterns of self-delusion and the resultant hindrance to an individual's cognition and critical thinking are the only reason why the concept of "faith in atheism" makes any sense to you.

This is not "atheist rage", this is me clicking on a thread and seeing somebody whose mind is so fundamentally broken by what they believe that they insist on incessantly posting these utter falsehoods. No positive result can come from discussion of such things between people who are so fundamentally different in belief structure in an internet forum whose primary focus is not philosophical.

The OP request should become forum policy.

Peet wrote:The OP request should become forum policy.

Yeah, your probably right.

I agree with both CarRepairer and Neddie (but not the poll idea...doesn't seem practical)

It seems there is so much interest in discussing these things it could use its own subforum, or forum branch, or whatever it's called.

While were at it lets also ban all topics and discussions relating to history, philosophy and news! From now on all topics must be either about

a) lolcats
b) FBF

anything else should warrant a [swift] banhammer to the face to preserve the good and friendly atmosphere!

Sleksa wrote:While were at it lets also ban all topics and discussions relating to history, philosophy and news! From now on all topics must be either about

a) lolcats
b) FBF

anything else should warrant a [swift] banhammer to the face to preserve the good and friendly atmosphere!

Loophole?

SinbadEV wrote:I'm sorry but I think you are wrong. Perhaps it's just a vocabulary issue.

And it probably is but I prefer the orthodox dictionary logical definition where possible as its clearer and not pseudofuzzy in interpretation. Granted sometimes in my posts I may not care and take an extra step to clarify how I use the word, and sometimes I forget entirely, but those cases are usually not in these kinds of threads, and especially not concerning these topics.

SinbadEV wrote:Please provide me the word for someone who believes, based on the lack of scientific evidence proving the existence of God, that there is no God so I can start use it in place of "Faith in Atheism".

Its not that you need a word for this concept, but rather that this concept is flawed. Atheists do not have a faith in a lack of God, that would result in a logical paradox, as they are by definition without faith.

SinbadEV wrote:Please provide me with a word for the need of some people who believe that God does not exist to aggressively attack the intelligence and morality of those who do, to use in place of "Atheist Rage".

Again, how can someone who by definition is faithless, have faith? You misunderstand what you seek to identify. Probably Athiests who seek to disperse the memetic perversion that is religion ( which indeed it is, regardless of its validity or not, I would be happy to say that christianity is a memetic perversion with the virgin mary and Holy fathers infront of me, and I would probably applaud them for it and at the same time ask why they inflict it on us).

If that is what you seek, then they do it to disillusion you, not out of fervent conviction of their cause. The closest term I can think of would be that coined by Dawkins of militant Atheism, whose goal is a counterweight to expansionist religion that aims to infiltrate and dominate society ( and wont leave happy Athiests alone, insisting on meddling in their affairs ), namely Militant Atheism.

SinbadEV wrote:Now, I agree with a number of the other things you said but what we are getting at here is that you don't believe the straw men I'm setting up are actually real people that exist... which I am 90% is not the case. There are idiots on both side of the discussion and it is, apparently, my goal in life to prove to strangers on the Internet that I am not one of them.

I refer to this anecdote from Dr Dawkins documentary The Root of All Evil

I do remember one formative influence in my undergraduate life. There was an elderly professor in my department who had been passionately keen on a particular theory for, oh, a number of years, and one day an American visiting researcher came and he completely and utterly disproved our old man's hypothesis. The old man strode to the front, shook his hand and said, "My dear fellow, I wish to thank you, I have been wrong these fifteen years". And we all clapped our hands raw. That was the scientific ideal, of somebody who had a lot invested, a lifetime almost invested in a theory, and he was rejoicing that he had been shown wrong and that scientific truth had been advanced. (Part 1, 00:13:32)

Its not the person who is wrong who is the fool, being wrong is just being wrong, you get on with it and waste no further time on the subject. It is the one who denies he is wrong in the face of overwhelming evidence and persists who is the fool.

"Active" atheists (probably none here actually) are either people who have been religious in the past "lost" faith and are now going the other way of attacking religion or they are people who do not want to see theists injecting their religion into society and turning it into actual laws that govern our lives.

smoth wrote:"none of it matters because that was not the topic of the thread and you guys happily derailed it. ANY TIME I try to get something productive going someone has to derail the effort. where are the moderators? nowhere? I reported posts and made requests for a split.

umm just pointing it out befor smoth is raging

going off topic in the off topic forum.....

AF wrote:going off topic in the off topic forum.....

was origonally in GENERAL DISCUSSION, note bit about it being moved.

Wait a minute...

An "Atheist" is someone who "Denies the Existence of God"... this does not preclude "faith" in this position... there's no logical paradox here.

Someone who "does not believe in God" inherently either "agrees there may be a God but has chosen to believe this is not the case" or believes "there is no possibility that God exists"... in either case, from my perspective (namely that no one has proven to me to me that God doesn't exist) is, by my definition, faith (believing something that cannot be proven).

If you claim that the lack of God can be proved, the burden of proof is on YOU (stereotypical Atheist) to convince me that this proof is valid. As someone with belief IN the existence of God I don't need proof of his existence, just a lack of proof to the contrary.

The position of the Atheist is similar, they put the burden of proof on the theists to provide conclusive and irrefutable proof that God does exist, otherwise they will continue to believe what that choose to believe.

Now, my positions as an Amateur philosopher and Christian are not inextricably linked... being a Christian is a personal belief, my adherence to the tenets of my faith are a personal choice, my desire to share the positive experience I feel comes from a personal relationship with the creator comes from my personal experiences and not from a teleological argument. So, I don't have a proof of God's existence that will work on anyone by myself... the language gets dodgy here because, as you mentioned before, this "proof" that I have of God's existence is non-transferable and therefore worthless in a formal argument.

Now, I'll grant that from the Atheist's perspective, there are an infinite number of things which everyone holds to be false with no evidence, and that God's existence or lack thereof is just one of many. Just as I don't believe in The Flying Spaghetti Monster but don't make a big deal of it.

edit: hurrah for Etymology


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=atheist

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Etymology

http://www.evilbible.com/Definition_of_Atheism_2.htm#1

http://www.thedivineconspiracy.org/athart3.htm

That was just the top 4 results on google...

edit 2: Okay, it looks like the etymological definition is just as confusing as the word itself... "without a belief in God" is probably a slightly better definition ... this is just like using the term "Evolution" despite it's etymology implying a direction only plausible in the context of intelligent design... sigh.

It's funny that you say that cause this is one of the only forums I've been on that can discuss those issues in a reasonably civil manner.

Just let people discuss what they want, Smoth. If it gets out of hand deal with it by locks/deletions/warnings/bans whatever. Topics shouldn't be banned, people who disrupt topics should be.

Hobo Joe wrote:Topics shouldn't be banned, people who disrupt topics should be.

No, not the people who caused the raging, but the people who never posted in 2 months should be banned as scapegoats, so you people can feel there is a moderator actually moderating these forums with justice in their hands. (not joking... it actually happened here once.)

TradeMark wrote:

Hobo Joe wrote:Topics shouldn't be banned, people who disrupt topics should be.

No, not the people who caused the raging, but the people who never posted in 2 months should be banned as scapegoats, so you people can feel there is a moderator actually moderating these forums with justice in their hands. (not joking... it actually happened here once.)

RIP Tribulex


We all still <3 you, except Behe

An atheist is a person who believes in the existence of no god.
An agnostic believes either that the existence of a god is currently unknown, or that the existence of a god is inherently unknowable.
A theist is a person who believes in the existence of a god.

I hope this helps.

stop this silly discussion about religion

Spring is a religion

Hobo Joe wrote:Spring is a religion

That cannot be cured.

Hobo Joe wrote:Spring is a religion

No, but "mods" / "games" and "(no) TAIP" are and those are much more annoying than religion because they spill into all threads.