Pagan beliefs are "in error". In what way in error and who says so?

[Maeght]

I tend to think that people who do have a faith just can't imagine being in a state where you have no beliefs. They think you must believe in something so assume that is a belief in not believing in something.

To me the term atheist refers to a general pool of people who are in the state of having no belief in God or gods. Within that pool there will be people who do have a belief that there is no God or gods to a varying degree but that is not what defines them as atheists. This is why I don't really like all the strong/weak atheist terms because it seems to be to be giving a scale of something other than atheism, b y which I mean atheism is the underlying common state of lack of belief then whether you believe there is no God or gods is something else. The meaning of the word has changed over the years, is still changing and is still not totally black and white, hence discussions like this.

[Owlswing]

You can call it what you like, you will never convince me that atheism is not a matter of faith, any more than Sassy and Hope will convince me that my faith is "in error".

Define atheism.

Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. (see OED)

[Nearly Sane]

So your lack of belief in four sided triangles is a faith? How about your lack of belief in gytihhvvd? Is that that a faith?

How can anything with four of anything be tri-anything?

And that's how I feel about the definition of gods i've been given, so how is that a faith?

[Owlswing]

What would testable evidence for a god be? What is a god in the first place? As an atheist, I find the idea that you could have some form of testable evidence for something that appears to be defined in purely non testable terms bizarre.

My point exactly. Which is why I accept, as you refuse to do, that my view is a matter of faith and not of fact!

[Maeght]

You can call it what you like, you will never convince me that atheism is not a matter of faith, any more than Sassy and Hope will convince me that my faith is "in error".

Define atheism.

Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. (see OED)

So not what you said earlier then where you referred to it as ' the belief in no god is as much a matter of faith as belief in a god or gods'.

A belief in no god is not the same as no belief in god.

[Leonard James]

What would testable evidence for a god be?

The same thing as testable evidence for anything else.

What is a god in the first place?

It is whatever its adherents claim it to be.

As an atheist, I find the idea that you could have some form of testable evidence for something that appears to be defined in purely non testable terms bizarre.

Believers have no option ... they have to claim that their 'gods' cannot be tested, otherwise they would be shown to be false.

[Owlswing]

You can call it what you like, you will never convince me that atheism is not a matter of faith, any more than Sassy and Hope will convince me that my faith is "in error".

Define atheism.

Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. (see OED)

So not what you said earlier then where you referred to it as ' the belief in no god is as much a matter of faith as belief in a god or gods'.

A belief in no god is not the same as no belief in god.

Not to me it isn't. You can believe what the Hell you like, you can, like a lot of people, make words means whatever you like, as can I, but it will not change the way I think about the subject, which strangely enough, is not what the OP asked.

Not one post on here has answered my question, or even attempted to answer my question, and I have no hope that anyone will answer my question and - as I have posted to a-o on another Topic, it will ever be thus.

Any thread on matters of belief will inevitably descend into the morass of belief/faith versus non-belief/non-faith bickering.

My Pagan beliefs work for me - atheism works for others, Christianity (in all its various forms), Islam, Judaism, work for others and no amount of arguing will change the views of any one of the adherents to any of these faiths, if it did, there would only be one faith, not the many that now exist.

Why, therefore, do I stay here?

Sometimes I wonder myself, and then a thread opens that, for a while anyway, until the usual suspects chime in, provides a moments entertainment. 

[torridon]

You can call it what you like, you will never convince me that atheism is not a matter of faith, any more than Sassy and Hope will convince me that my faith is "in error".

Define atheism.

Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. (see OED)

So not what you said earlier then where you referred to it as ' the belief in no god is as much a matter of faith as belief in a god or gods'.

A belief in no god is not the same as no belief in god.

Not to me it isn't. You can believe what the Hell you like, you can, like a lot of people, make words means whatever you like, as can I, but it will not change the way I think about the subject, which strangely enough, is not what the OP asked

All you show here is a streak of stubbornness; rather than actually engaging with the way other people think you just refuse to listen.   Maybe your beliefs work for you, I accept that,whatever it means, but you cannot paint other people with your own projection as a cheap way to avoid understanding through engagement.

[Nearly Sane]

Evidence in science and history is methodologically naturalistic, gods are generally defined supernaturally. Without a method for that, the concept of evidence is meaningless.

[Rhiannon]

If we have faith in anything, it is faith in ourselves and our capabilities to understand things. Atheists, it seems to me, stay with the provable and testable; us theists find there's something else we need to make sense of. Some do it through the framework of religion, others (like myself) have to wing it, but to deny it is there is to deny a part of who we are.

I can very well imagine what it is like to be an atheist btw. I don't think I will ever lose my pantheistic belief but sometimes the concept of a personal god seems very distant.

[Maeght]

Not to me it isn't. You can believe what the Hell you like, you can, like a lot of people, make words means whatever you like, as can I, but it will not change the way I think about the subject, which strangely enough, is not what the OP asked.

You can think what you want - but if you state something on an open discussion forum like that then you should expect to be challenged. If you don't like it - which from your responses you don't - then don't post.

Not one post on here has answered my question, or even attempted to answer my question, and I have no hope that anyone will answer my question and - as I have posted to a-o on another Topic, it will ever be thus.

Your OP included a quote as if from someone so you would only really expect the person who had said that to reply wouldn't you? The OP was also phrased as if ready to start an argument. Perhaps that's why many have not posted.

Any thread on matters of belief will inevitably descend into the morass of belief/faith versus non-belief/non-faith bickering.

Bickering? It seems like a discussion with only one person getting techy.

My Pagan beliefs work for me

Good

no amount of arguing will change the views of any one of the adherents to any of these faiths, if it did, there would only be one faith, not the many that now exist.

So why post the OP f you don't really care and it won't make any diufference, only to annoy you.

Why, therefore, do I stay here?

It is a question I think we all need to ask about ourselves.

[Maeght]

I can very well imagine what it is like to be an atheist btw. I don't think I will ever lose my pantheistic belief but sometimes the concept of a personal god seems very distant.

That's good to hear. Judging from what many people with beliefs post about how they think people without a faith feel or think then few have this ability.

[Leonard James]

... us theists find there's something else we need to make sense of.

That is what I don't understand, Rhi. The NEED to make sense of things we don't have answers to yet.

Atheists, on the whole, don't have that need. We are perfectly happy to accept that we don't know the answers to some things.

Odd, ain't it? 

[Nearly Sane]

Sometimes talking of answers seems a bit premature to me. It's not clear that we can frame sensible questions.

[Rhiannon]

At best we are making sense of our own experiences. For me is is a personal response to my own inner question, 'what was/is that?'

I don't think my understanding on atheism is so unusual. Ian Hislop once said of Anglicanism that he sits in the pews each week veering between thinking 'this is all bullshit' and 'this is all there is'. I experience enough of the latter moments to keep me going.

[Leonard James]

Sometimes talking of answers seems a bit premature to me. It's not clear that we can frame sensible questions.

Well, "How did the universe get here?" seems a perfectly sensible question to me. Equally sensible is the answer "We don't know yet."

What is NOT sensible is to invent gods to explain it.

[Udayana]

The "great" men/women of history didn't fight wars and build empires on the basis of "we don't know yet".

Generally, people have to build their thoughts on some, maybe only seemingly, firm foundation in order to act.

eg. re. the discussion on red/processed meat etc. All we have is figures for probability (actually in that case not even those) - knowing the risks you still have to decide what to actually do. Whichever way you decide to go you could still end up feeling that you are worse off. People grab whatever they can hang on to, to (in the main) continue doing what they were doing before.

 

[Owlswing]

Sometimes talking of answers seems a bit premature to me. It's not clear that we can frame sensible questions.

Well, "How did the universe get here?" seems a perfectly sensible question to me. Equally sensible is the answer "We don't know yet."

What is NOT sensible is to invent gods to explain it.

Which is NOT part of my Pagan belief - my deities exist as part of the universe and not the creators of it.

[Rhiannon]

And to me the universe and deity are the same thing.

[Leonard James]

Which is NOT part of my Pagan belief - my deities exist as part of the universe and not the creators of it.

If that makes you happy, fine, but most other religions seem to have gods that created everything.

[Nearly Sane]

Sometimes talking of answers seems a bit premature to me. It's not clear that we can frame sensible questions.

Well, "How did the universe get here?" seems a perfectly sensible question to me. Equally sensible is the answer "We don't know yet."

What is NOT sensible is to invent gods to explain it.

Agreed, I wasn't clear here. I don't mean that there are no questions that can be asked but that sometimes the 'answers' that are sought seem to be from questions that we struggle to express. In the example above there is an assumption about naturalism since that is how we invetsigate it and is not really covering the question that might be framed as 'Why is the universe here?' where there is an assumption of purpose.

I think that a lot of the 'answers' we seek, are not to coherent questions but inchoate feelings that revolve around emotional needs to have a larger why, a coherent pupose, to break the yawning gap between us and the noumenal

[Rhiannon]

I can't find anything in paganism that answers any question as to why - why we exist, what the purpose of life is. If you seek answers then paganism probably isn't the right place to look for them.

[Rhiannon]

If I seek anything it is a sense of connection. This woman certainly isn't an island but IME people are shit at connectedness - myself included - and religion can't be relied upon either. What I can rely on is the ground beneath me, the sky above me, clouds, trees, stars. They are ever with me.

[Leonard James]

Sometimes talking of answers seems a bit premature to me. It's not clear that we can frame sensible questions.

Well, "How did the universe get here?" seems a perfectly sensible question to me. Equally sensible is the answer "We don't know yet."

What is NOT sensible is to invent gods to explain it.

Agreed, I wasn't clear here. I don't mean that there are no questions that can be asked but that sometimes the 'answers' that are sought seem to be from questions that we struggle to express. In the example above there is an assumption about naturalism since that is how we invetsigate it and is not really covering the question that might be framed as 'Why is the universe here?' where there is an assumption of purpose.

I think that a lot of the 'answers' we seek, are not to coherent questions but inchoate feelings that revolve around emotional needs to have a larger why, a coherent pupose, to break the yawning gap between us and the noumenal

Why on earth should there be a "purpose" to an agglomeration of matter?

[Rhiannon]

Because otherwise life can seem pointless, and some people find that hard to accept.