Do you believe in God?

[jwocky]

Amd thinking again about it, you don't want to compare me to a woman ... I may get PMS and become totally unbearable ....

[KL-666]

Just do not hijack every thread with your feuds, so that anyone reacting to the subject is accused of reacting to you.

Kind regards, Vincent

[IAHM-COL]

I may get PMS and become totally unbearable ....

That's an scary thougth right there.

(loosing my breath)

LOL again.

[Lydiot]

Pretty clear title I think Do you believe there is/are one/many gods?

The last option isn't mutually exclusive to the others. Knowledge and belief are two different things. Someone who doesn't know is an Agnostic. Someone who doesn't believe is an Atheist. Someone who does is a Theist. Anyway.....

[Lydiot]

I find the whole concept of calling people a-something a bit awkward.

Take a man minding his own business, totally unaware of any concept of deity. Then someone believing in god comes along and asks: do you believe in god? No, sorry i do not know him, the man answers. Now the believer goes: Aha, so you are an atheist!

I would say it would have been correct to call the person an atheist before he was aware of the concept, and still after when he doesn't subscribe to the view. Even if he takes a stance that asserts a specific contrary view ("God does not exist") he would similarly be an Atheist.

Prove that god does not exist. Err, sorry, prove that who does not exist? the man askes.

I think the man should not be forced in the position of having any burden of proof by calling him atheist. The burden of proof lies with the asserter, the believer.

Absolutely. The onus should be on the one making the claim. The bigger the claim the bigger the burden of proof. I can personally not even conceive of a bigger claim than god....

And just think of the sustainability of calling someone a-something when many people like the believer come along. Believers in elves, flying elephants etc... Do you expect the man to have time to disprove all of that? No, leave the man to BE. Call him human or whatever, but not a-your-belief.

Kind regards, Vincent

Well, part of this is semantics in the sense that you end up with a word that describes someone's belief or lack of belief about something, so I suppose I agree with you that it's often not necessary to use the term at all. But if you want to describe that group of people the term works well. I honestly don't see less of a reason to use that term than the term "religious" (or "Christian" or whatever).

The other thing is that contrary to belief in elves belief in god tends to have consequences, especially considering the power of organized religion. So, since that is the case Atheists actually to an extent feel compelled to take a stand. The 'baseline' for our western societies (not to mention the mid-eastern) is religion, which then governs or influences a lot of our society. So, since that's the case, many Atheists now feel compelled to proclaim their lack of faith, and in many cases anti-Theism, in order to gain rights they feel they currently don't have.

[Lydiot]

As for the options I chose that I don't believe in god. I don't know if god actually exists, so I'm also an agnostic. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to bet money on it I'd say "doesn't exist". Why? I find it highly unlikely that there'd be a god. I also haven't heard any particularly compelling arguments in favor of his existence. Or hers....

Or, in a nutshell:

[jwocky]

Okay, the Atheists found their agreement? Believers can't prove God doesn't exist, they can't prove God doesn't exist, so per declaration by the Atheists, they are right! That's too funny because that is exactly the attitude of religions which proves again, Atheism is just another religion. Of course, by stating the obvious again, I will be no accused to carry my feuds into here, but actually, the subjects are connected (even I will get answers to deny that).
The point is, religions usually (not all, give a pattern of behavioural rules which makes sense for daily life. Or at least made sense in the time they were written. Jews and Muslims don't eat pork meat. Well, surprise, if I am in a desert (I have been in a few) and it is 120 degrees, I don't either. The stuff will kill you by heat stroke alone by its poor fat content.
Other rules, like "You shall not kill" are kind of self-explanatory.
Now, not all religions have such rules and some cult like religions over history had some very twisted versions. Think the Thuggi in India.
The rela worrisome point for me is, how hard Atheists, also in those threads that spread out now over four threads and got really nasty when Lydiot embarrassed himself again by lack of knowledge hwat he is talking about, claim, their religion has no such rules at all. No moral compass, no moral restrictions at all. Well, I wondered a while ago in another clash with Lydiot, how cool someone can go over killed kids and blown up bodies of innocent victims. I really hope, I didn't get here the answer in the form "He is an Atheist, he has no moral values". That would be too bad. Soooo, how do you Atheists handle that? By "common decency". After Lydiot's latest outbreaks of pure malignancy and stupidity, I know at least one self-proclaimed Atheist who seems to live well without any form of decency ... so at the moment, the picture is not nice and maybe a reasonable Atheist can jump in and explain how that works?

[Lydiot]

Okay, the Atheists found their agreement? Believers can't prove God doesn't exist, they can't prove God doesn't exist, so per declaration by the Atheists, they are right!

Nope. Atheists are saying that the onus is on the one making the initial claim, which would be the believer. An entirely different line of reasoning regardless of what you say.

That's too funny because that is exactly the attitude of religions which proves again, Atheism is just another religion. Of course, by stating the obvious again, I will be no accused to carry my feuds into here, but actually, the subjects are connected (even I will get answers to deny that).

I agree with you. And to prove that point I'll just point out that it should read "even though I will get answers..." for example. "even I will" isn't correct English, a word is missing. You make this error a lot I think. You're welcome.

their religion has no such rules at all.

Atheism has no rules at all. That's because Atheism is a lack of a specific belief system (theism) which is also why it therefore is not a religion. One is tempted to say "duh", but apparently it doesn't apply.

[KL-666]

Well, in my experience atheists often do make the statement: "There is no god". That is something i think i should not be associated with. So i prefer more neutral words for myself, like human.

For those who think calling people a-names is nice, i have this: When i meet a believer, i could think: Ow, believing is very different from my having nothing to do with it. So probably i should call the believer the opposite of me: a-human.

Would not be nice, would it? So i refrain from doing such thing.

Kind regards, Vincent

Disclaimer: This is a general statement. Not a reaction to any ongoing discussions. At most it is a reaction to Lydiots latest comment on one of my posts.

[Lydiot]

Well, in my experience atheists often do make the statement: "There is no god". That is something i think i should not be associated with. So i prefer more neutral words for myself, like human.

But "Atheist" as a term will cover both "I don't believe in god" and "I believe god does not exist". Both are covered. You'll see several Atheists who publicly talk about the term trying to make people see that that's the case. In other words there's nothing wrong with the term but with how people (like Jwocky) understand it. If you tell me you're an Atheist I will not presume that you think god does not exist, the only thing I will presume is that you do not believe in god.

As for "human", that's a nice word to use, but it's also both obvious that you are a human and entirely pointless to use. Why would I call you human? I would just call you Vincent or whatever your nickname is, or possibly by title if that's important within a context, or if we're discussing faith an Atheist, because it is accurate. Saying "human" isn't really useful in a conversation when we know you're human.

"Hey Vincent, are you a Christian?"
"No, I'm human."

Well, obviously you are. But the question wasn't about whether or not you're human, it was what your belief system was.

"Hey Vincent, are you a Totalitarianist"
"No, I'm human."

It can thus be used to cover all bases and is more or less useless in these contexts, even though it's correct. I think part of what I'm reading into your thoughts on this makes it more productive to just answer "I'm not going to talk about it because it's personal and I don't want to be defined by my opinions about it".

For those who think calling people a-names is nice, i have this: When i meet a believer, i could think: Ow, believing is very different from my having nothing to do with it. So probably i should call the believer the opposite of me: a-human.

Would not be nice, would it? So i refrain from doing such thing.

"Human" and "Christian" are two completely different things. I think the above reasoning is entirely illogical. "Human" is what we all are. Using your reasoning above I think I could ask you if you are African, and if you say "no", because Africans are humans, I could then call you "a-human". I think that's the same logic, and it doesn't work.

Disclaimer: This is a general statement. Not a reaction to any ongoing discussions. At most it is a reaction to Lydiots latest comment on one of my posts.

Understood and absolutely respected.