Religion's

I never expected anyone to make a big deal out of that. "I have decided that nothing can be proven" that sounds a whole lot like the second camp of agnostics I described above. You are choosing to be agnostic because you see no way to decide upon any other religion. Even if you are not going to decide I would argue that you are still undecided. The word "undecided" just carries an implication I don't want that you are trying to decide.

No thank you. I've gotten in enough arguments with atheists to know to not even imply that they are a religion. If nothing else it simply isn't a battle that is worth me fighting. And I wrote it that way to include the people that don't want the label but fit in that category.

 

lol how's that Satanism working out for you buddy?

 

I was thinking atheist, but without being able to read tone of voice it could be either. Granted most Satanists wouldn't label themselves as such.

 

There is only one true religion.

Spoiler

WELCOME TO THE DARK CARNIVAL, BROTHER.

"Undecided" implies that a decision will inevitably be made. That's obviously not true in this case. It's rather presumptuous of you to assume that everyone must have or want a religion and that people who don't are somehow not actualized or have not come to their ultimate conclusion. Some people just frame things differently.

You probably lose those arguments, then. A faith is not the same as a religion. Everything takes some measure of faith, including atheism.

 

Oh, it seems you quoted the wrong person. Since my post implied nothing about Satanism.

 

There will be an ultimate conclusion down the line. Whatever religion (or lack there of) is right, the truth reveals it self in time (likely the time you die). Imagine for instance that there are a group of people in space that are debating if gravity exists. And for analogy purposes lets pretend that they unable to prove it one way or the other. You are free to say that you don't want to decide that you believe in one side or the other until you land on a planet. At that point only a fool would still argue that gravity's existence can't be determined.

I would agree with you. Most atheists I talk to wouldn't. It is a debate on semantics and not really substance so I stopped arguing it. Atheists are not any different if you consider them a faith, religion, cult, turkey sandwich, whatever.

I also don't consider any argument to be won or lost. An argument is not a battle, it is a search for truth. At least in theory, if you convince me that I'm wrong then I am one step closer to truth than I was before and if I convince you then I helped someone else get closer to the truth. And while we argue we might find that the truth is somewhere in between. It sadly isn't always that clean and you can come out of arguments convinced of something that is wrong, or both sides are too steadfast in what they believed before. But an argument is not to be won or lost. Thinking like that just makes having a true argument all the harder.

 

It's a common misconception that Satanism solely means believing in Satan. Satanists, at least one denomination of them, believes that every person is his/her own God.

If Atheists are right and there's nothing after death, how will the truth reveal itself when there won't be a consciousness to understand that there's something down there? If the Atheist view on the afterlife is correct, no Christian will abandon faith upon dying because they won't exist as a conscious to realize they're isn't a heaven (or they realize they were right, but ended up in Hell, which is what I'm hoping). Same goes for every religion. What if some obscure, relatively unknown religion is right and when we all die we end up in their version of the afterlife? If we don't know what religion it is, are we still supposed to come to the conclusion to be a believer of that religion? The way you say it, it seems like every religion can have its mind changed upon dying (if that's when the truth is revealed). Then why are they not undecided?

 

It is one of the pieces I've found ironic about athiesim. They are the group that cares most about understanding (or at least is most verbal about it) and when they die they believe there is no mind left to understand what happened. But anyway, what I'm saying is that where most religions have a notable difference is in their version of the afterlife. If you are a Buhdist and you die to find yourself in hell, it is clear that you are wrong. If you find that some religion you were unaware of is right you'll learn it once it becomes your reality. And I'm missing what you mean in the last question. Is "they" supposed to be the people that died?

 

The ultimate conclusion is that there is no ultimate conclusion. Truth is not an end to be reached; it is a beast that demands food.

 

I'm now imagining you with a pet bear named "truth" and I don't mean that figuratively.

 

To clear up a few misconceptions:

Firstly, atheism isn't a religion. It's the lack of a belief in a deity. I know the quote is often used, but even so, calling Atheism a religion is like calling baldness a hair colour.

Secondly, let's go over the differences between theism, atheism, gnosticism and agnosticism. They're two different scales. The theism scale measures whether you believe, while the gnostic scale measures how strongly you believe it. (to put it crudely.)

Atheism is a belief that there is no god. Theism is a belief that there is a god. Gnosticism is the belief that you know for sure that what you believe is right (or can be confirmed/known). Agnosticism is the belief that you don't know for sure that what you believe is right (or can be confirmed/known).

The pope is a gnostic theist. Richard Dawkins is an agnostic atheist. You can get other combinations, but things such as a gnostic atheist are rare.

(I'm a tad shaky with my gnosticism definitions though.)

 

I have to say there is something that is surprising me about this thread. For all the ratting me out about how people don't like how I made the poll nobody has brought up how I accidentally put an apostrophe in the title. lol

 

Here's the long version of what P is saying.




-----
Too many times I have informed someone that I am an atheist, only to have them reply, “Oh, but how could you know that God doesn’t exist? You’re taking a faith position!”
Many headaches later, we finally come to an agreement over the definitions of these words.
This arrangement is an attempt to clarify and classify these words, so that their rogue meanings no longer confuse and muddle religious debate.
To begin with, here are the four key terms arranged on a graph with their opposites across from them. This should allow a very rough placement of one’s theological position. It will be refined in greater detail later.






Now here are the terms defined. If the terms are new to you, refer up to the graph to get an idea of how they relate to one another.
The horizontal axis concerns WHAT YOU BELIEVE:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The vertical axis concerns WHAT YOU THINK WE CAN KNOW:

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So, to restate:



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These four labels can be very useful in describing the way we feel about gods. They can combine together to make more precise labels.


An atheist agnostic is someone who does not believe in gods and also thinks that the existence of gods cannot be known. This might mean that they don’t believe in gods because they haven’t seen any evidence that supports their existence.


A theist gnostic is someone who believes in a god/gods and thinks that the existence of gods can be known. This position is usually referred to as just ‘theist‘, since people who believe in gods, usually also think that their existence can be known.


An atheist gnostic is someone who does not believe in gods, and who thinks that we can know that gods do not exist. A fairly unusual position, they might think they have found proof of the non-existence of gods, or might have been persuaded by life experiences.


A theist agnostic is someone who believes in gods, but thinks that they could not know for sure that their god exists. Another fairly unusual position, as people who have faith in gods usually also think that their god can be known to be real.


So we have two common positions: atheist agnosticand theist
and two less common positions: atheist gnostic and theist agnostic
and we can change the graph to reflect that:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In terms of numbers, the main positions are represented here, and the fringe positions minimized. Though the corners are cut, these positions are by no means impossible. For example, absolute atheist gnostic would express: “I know with absolute certainty that no Gods exist.” And absolute agnostic theist would express: “There is absolutely no way to know God’s existence for certain, but I have no doubt whatsoever that there is one.”


The direction of the arrow represents the direction of skepticism on the graph. The upper-most left is the position of the most doubt, whilst the lower-right displays the position of the most certainty.


The absolute central position is one of apathy or indifference. An apatheist, perhaps.*


Someone who does not know what they think yet cannot be placed on the graph, and should make up their mind if they wish to find a theological label for their views.
A very important point is that claims to knowledge are only made in the bottom half of the graph. Only gnostics make claims to knowledge.


A quirk of the theist/gnostic box is that the concept of God changes from corner to corner.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, to get an idea of what all this means, here’s some common positions located on the graph:


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s important to remember that these terms can still be misleading.


When talking about different gods that people believe in, we could pick different positions on the graph depending on which god is under discussion. For example, Christians will be on the theist axis when it comes to Jesus, but on the atheist axis when it comes to Zeus.


People who refer to themselves in casual usage as atheists usually mean that they are atheists for all possible gods, whilst a Muslim would be an atheist for all gods except Allah.


Finally, here’s the graph in its final form. Where do you fit?


*NOTE: Such a person will act as if there are no gods, since they are utterly indifferent to the idea. For all intents and purposes, they are an atheist. This is a non-trivial point. Babies are born indifferent to the idea of gods – indeed – they cannot conceive it, and accordingly are atheists: they do not believe in gods because they can not.
------
By Peter Brietbart
http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/09/25/8419/

 

I cant say mine because theirs no multi choice and I believe a mix of Christianity and Spiritualism.

Feels bad man.

 

...

brb buying a bear

 

My religion.

 

I thought the shield was a duel disk at first. That would have been awesome. It is still cool though.

 

As Sforzato said, I have decided that all faith is folly. That is in itself a decision. If I were to meet a god, I would still not be able to prove that he was not just another part of my dream. The same is true of you. All conclusions are decisions, after all. There is no such thing as an undecided, unless you are willing to consider a faith but have not done so yet. Still looking, as they say. And that I am not doing.

How submissive of you. At the very least, it is a faith. Faith in some kind of system. Something that cannot be proven. Absolute doubt still implies certainty, I would say. As LilBueno said, though, most people do not take that position, so the point is moot, but I would still strongly suggest switching out the none if you are going to leave all of the other faiths without gods up there as well.

No, there will not. If I die, and I meet a god or what have you, I will not be able to prove that what I am experiencing is physically real or not just in my head. Likewise, if I land on the planet, I still cannot prove that the planet is physically there, or that my body is there to be attracted to it. It could all be something like a hallucination. Any absolute conclusion from evidence is folly. That is what I am saying. Not that there is no evidence, but that evidence is useless for proof. The ultimate conclusion is that no experience, before or after death, can be proven to have happened or have been a certain thing. All that you know is that you experienced something. That is all.

Just as any Christian would do the same. No one likes to be told that their views are simplistic. Including you... Atheists, as Christians and others, love to feel that they are special. Do not let that get to you and give up early on because of it.

So, no one wins or loses any fights or confrontations? I find that a bit hard to believe. An argument is to a fist fight as an insult is to a punch in the face. As I see it, if you believe something, and then argue it as a kind of contest while trying to convert the other person, and then that person proves that your belief is false, you have lost. You failed in your goal, and they succeeded in theirs. This is particularly true in debates and with any issues of formal logic, such as with math or computing. If you did not plan to prove them wrong, however, then you are speaking of a dialectic style of argument. Do you know the term?

That is clearly false. It is not a lack of belief... It is, rather, a belief in the opposite. The two sides, theism and atheism, claim, "It is," and, "It is not," respectively. They both claim that something 'is' true. I would call that a faith, if not a religion, any day.

 

We'll have to change this to, 'The spamzone with the occasional serious thread' section.