any mormons or jw's in this forum??

[Nearly Sane]

Shut the fuck up then.

So it's not that you don't get answers, you just don't like the answers and then seek to shut down discussion.

[floo]

Shut the fuck up then.

Temper, temper you don't like it when others prove you to be in the wrong.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So it's not that you don't get answers, you just don't like the answers and then seek to shut down discussion.

If you are going to knock religious prescriptions and views on the big issues I think you ought to outline what the alternative view is otherwise you just end up looking unreasonable.

What happens is ''That's crap but you can't ask me why because I'm an atheist and have no burden of proof for anything ever in my life na na na na na.

[Nearly Sane]

If you are going to knock religious prescriptions and views on the big issues I think you ought to outline what the alternative view is otherwise you just end up looking unreasonable.

What happens is ''That's crap but you can't ask me why because I'm an atheist and have no burden of proof for anything ever in my life na na na na na.

Of course I have a burden of proof for positive claims I make. It would help if you didn't just misrepresent people, It makes discussion difficult. I don't particularly knock 'religious' prescriptions as that's way too simplistic. I disagree with some religious people on some things and agree with some on others. Exactly the same as I do with atheists. I don't think that someone being a theist tells me anything much about them or what I think of them,

[Nearly Sane]

I have you down as a ''back to your hutches and shut the fuck upabout world views'' camp. It seems that suits someone who wants to takes pot shots but doesn't wish to bother with returned fire.

No. as I've covered I don't think I have anything as coherent as a world view and I suspect that very few people actually do. And I'm perfectly happy to discuss why I think that. You have to get overseeing disagreement as somehow being unwilling to talk about things. It's a misrepresentation that you use frequently and  it makes it difficult to have anything approaching a discussion because I have to continually point out that you are misrepresenting me.

I have to note the irony that you are the one who has just told someone to shut the fuck up.

[Stranger]

Shut the fuck up then.

Wow Vlad - you really have a problem with comprehension. Atheism is having no belief in gods - it specifies no other beliefs, it has no creed.

Think about it.

Specifically it does not specify that not believing in gods is the only belief you can hold with regard to religion.

Penny dropping?

Obviously those atheists who are bothered to post here do so for some other reason than simply being an atheist. In my case it's because I think irrational, baseless beliefs such as religion, other superstition, homeopathy, etc. should be challenged and this is one place that accommodates that.

However, I cannot speak for other atheists here. You have just as much information about what they believe as I do.

[Nearly Sane]

There are probably thousands of 'types of atheist' if you set out enough additional criteria and I doubt you'd have covered them all even then - unless one of the categories was "none of the above".

There is still no atheist creed - no atheist set of beliefs. Atheists are all the people who have no belief in gods. That's it.

To be fair, that's true of theists as well. I don't think you can really tell anything useful just because someone states they believe in god(s).

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Of course I have a burden of proof for positive claims I make. It would help if you didn't just misrepresent people, It makes discussion difficult. I don't particularly knock 'religious' prescriptions as that's way too simplistic. I disagree with some religious people on some things and agree with some on others. Exactly the same as I do with atheists. I don't think that someone being a theist tells me anything much about them or what I think of them,

You can be an atheist but what is often proposed is Vacuumism as if what religion covers can be excised without expansion into the space. As Gray points out atheists find some system or means of reinflating the space left by religion and unsurprisingly it begins very much to look like religion hence Dawkins evangelicalism, Pinker's inexorable progress, enlightenement, secular humanisms good bloke theory, self created and eternal unconscious universes, mathematical universes and the like.

[Nearly Sane]

You can be an atheist but what is often proposed is Vacuumism as if what religion covers can be excised without expansion into the space. As Gray points out atheists find some system or means of reinflating the space left by religion and unsurprisingly it begins very much to look like religion hence Dawkins evangelicalism, Pinker's inexorable progress, enlightenement, secular humanisms good bloke theory, self created and eternal unconscious universes, mathematical universes and the like.

You are going down a false dichotomy route here, The 'opposite' of atheist is theist, not religious, There are atheists who are religious and theists who are not.

[ippy]

it seems funny that any forum about religion are always full of atheists...

You're right GoG, in my case I find it fascinating, that people really still do hold on to such ancient, more or less bronze age, so obviously man made, magical, mystical, superstition based, nonsensical ideas.

Some of the real devotees of these ideas amaze me with some of the stuff they come out with and most of the ideas I read I feel have to be challenged mainly due to the complete absence, zero amount of viable evidence they have that would back their beliefs/ideas up.

Anyway that's my main reason for looking at the pages where there are still people that hold these rather strange beliefs/ideas about how they think the world works.

I would add that most people that hold these, strange to me, beliefs/ideas, the ones I mix with in my general life are usually very pleasant affable people just as I'm sure those on the forum are much the same, it is only the ideas I criticise here and I'm sure most of the believers we so called atheists challenge here are generally good, decent people.   

Regards ippy

[Stranger]

To be fair, that's true of theists as well.

The bare fact of theism - yes, of course. There are however (at least in theory) ready-made categories of theist (religion, denomination, etc.) that an individual might choose to identify with.

I don't think you can really tell anything useful just because someone states they believe in god(s).

Depends how 'useful' you find that bit of information, I guess...       

[Nearly Sane]

The bare fact of theism - yes, of course. There are however (at least in theory) ready-made categories of theist (religion, denomination, etc.) that an individual might choose to identify with.

Depends how 'useful' you find that bit of information, I guess...     

Indeed there are categories but that is surely as Vlad has been raising true about atheists if we just want to use crude classification classifications?

[Stranger]

Indeed there are categories but that is surely as Vlad has been raising true about atheists if we just want to use crude classification classifications?

Possibly but there are (AFAIK) no atheist equivalents to religions/denominations that have 'doctrines' you can sign up to (with the possible exception of humanism - I don't know enough about it to be sure). Vlad mentioned seven types of atheism and I have no idea what they are. IIRC Dawkins' categories are just about how strong your disbelief is.

In any event, the actual point raised by Vlad was about atheist questions and answers - which simply isn't feasible for the reasons stated by yourself here: Questions for atheists.

[Nearly Sane]

Possibly but there are (AFAIK) no atheist equivalents to religions/denominations that have 'doctrines' you can sign up to (with the possible exception of humanism - I don't know enough about it to be sure). Vlad mentioned seven types of atheism and I have no idea what they are. IIRC Dawkins' categories are just about how strong your disbelief is.

In any event, the actual point raised by Vlad was about atheist questions and answers - which simply isn't feasible for the reasons stated by yourself here: Questions for atheists.

Again though you can be a theist and not sign up to doctrines,  or indeed sign up to some categorisation and not accept all the doctrines. And you can be atheist and sign up to religions. The bare fact of I have belief in god(s)/ I lack belief is useless as an assumption about anything beyond that.


The difference is that as one is a positive claim it more easily generates questions e.g. What do you mean by god(s) which apply for the theist, which don't for an atheist.


ETA: The 7 types is a reference to John Gray's book that I started the following thread on - the review on the thread doesn't make clear what they arw. Glad has taken it as some form of useful classification action without having read the book.

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=15481.0

[Owlswing]

  It was very early this morning while I was drinking tea and thinking about getting up. It was an interesting read LR but I'm only posting about it because Owlswing said he didn't have much response - & he did.

I have just re-read the thread myself and three pages is actually two pages and one [post and most of the is a discussion between three people, myself, Rhiannon and Shaker.

Most of the rest was not duscussing Paganism as a religious belief but questioning the 'magic' parts of ritual rathger than the deities in which we believe and our basis for that belief.

In all honesty I expected nothing else when I opened the thread so I can hardly say that, at the time, I was disppointed.

Re-reading has however resurrected my respect and affection for the Shaker whom I miss greatly on this forum.

[Stranger]

The difference is that as one is a positive claim it more easily generates questions e.g. What do you mean by god(s) which apply for the theist, which don't for an atheist.

Yes, that is the fundamental difference but it's the collective nature of many theist beliefs that makes "questions for..." type topics possible, which is what prompted this discussion.

[Harrowby Hall]

By any stretch or measure Nicholas Marks underwent by far the most disrespectful treatment from the antitheists on this board. I'm sure there are red faces as people are made to remember their treatment of him.

Yes, Nicholas was/is a JW, with a difference. In recent years he seems to appear once annually for a few weeks only to disappear again; he can be found though on Google+. He certainly responded to any attacks with much grace.

There are people on this forum who could represent Great Britain at the Olympic Games if Derailing were a competitive event.

Anyway, back to Sparky (presumed JW).

Was not the last time we saw him was when he was predicting immediate planetary chaos because of the approach of the planet Nibiru? Well, it is impossible to know whether Nibiru is out there because the sky seems permanently covered by cloud.

I always had a suspicion that Nicholas was a very highly skilled WUM. How else to describe his accurate righteousness?

[floo]

NM hasn't looked in since December, maybe he has had his say?

[Nearly Sane]

I have just re-read the thread myself and three pages is actually two pages and one [post and most of the is a discussion between three people, myself, Rhiannon and Shaker.

Most of the rest was not duscussing Paganism as a religious belief but questioning the 'magic' parts of ritual rathger than the deities in which we believe and our basis for that belief.

In all honesty I expected nothing else when I opened the thread so I can hardly say that, at the time, I was disppointed.

Re-reading has however resurrected my respect and affection for the Shaker whom I miss greatly on this forum.

It might be that Robbie is referring to the separate  thread on the FSA - I don't think it's clear

[Aruntraveller]

Re-reading has however resurrected my respect and affection for the Shaker whom I miss greatly on this forum.

I miss Shaker too, but I think he will be back. He's had other real life things to deal with lately.

[Owlswing]

I miss Shaker too, but I think he will be back. He's had other real life things to deal with lately.

Hi Trent!

Is your comment a nice polite way of saying that most of what goes on here is not real?

It does sometimes seem to swim very close to the borders of high fantasy and I do not, by that, mean Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings although it is sometimes just as entertaining.

[Rhiannon]

Outing myself as the pantheistic pagan here, although as GoG is gone I guess that matters not.

I always thought NickMarks was treated well here. With bafflement sometimes. But I loved his posts, even if I didn’t have the first clue what he was on about. The images conjured up by lines like ‘I will have to test this out in my laboratory’...

[Owlswing]

Outing myself as the pantheistic pagan here, although as GoG is gone I guess that matters not.

I always thought NickMarks was treated well here. With bafflement sometimes. But I loved his posts, even if I didn’t have the first clue what he was on about. The images conjured up by lines like ‘I will have to test this out in my laboratory’...

I was hoping that it would not be necessary for you to be outed, by yourself or anu other, when I wrote the 'pantheist comment.

I trust you are still in contact with the Shaker and that he is well - please pass on to him my very best wishes - I don't know about others but he is, by me, sorely missed.

[Rhiannon]

I was hoping that it would not be necessary for you to be outed, by yourself or anu other, when I wrote the 'pantheist comment.

I trust you are still in contact with the Shaker and that he is well - please pass on to him my very best wishes - I don't know about others but he is, by me, sorely missed.

I don’t mind outing myself, or anyone else doing it, I’m happy with what I am. 

I’ll pass on your good wishes.

[Rhiannon]

Shaker sends his best to everyone here.