Religion?

[Morpheus]

No, "nontheism" doesn't claim an all-out atheism. Nontheism is a category that includes the set of beliefs that do not affirm the belief in the supernatural. Sometimes in sociological studies it includes those people that have no religious preference...we often call those "apatheists." Atheism is just a type of nontheism. Agnosticism is a type of nontheism. Nontheism itself is the broader category. An atheist is always a nontheist, but a nontheist is not necessarily an atheist.

Next, I don't care what fundamentalists like to claim about atheists. Nontheism isn't a different name for atheism anyways. This has nothing to do with the term.

And I can't claim I "believe in a deity, or partially believe in a deity, or believe they don't exist." My point of view is that the word "God," as well as definitions for such terms as "omnipotence" and "benevolence" are WAAAAY too vague to correctly form an opinion on. Therefore, the only way to settle the God debate in my mind is to take the individual definitions of God, even with their subtle differences or obvious ones, and make an judgment on each definition.

It's pointless to say, "I believe God doesn't exist" because the term God is just so vague. There are people that think that "God" is just the universe...that they're the same thing. In that case I could be a theist, but such a definition is quite uninteresting, unless you mean to assert that the universe has supernatural properties (and then with that definition I'd claim agnosticism).

So nontheism is just the best term for someone like me. I'm not an atheist because there are some definitions of God that I just don't have enough evidence to make a judgment (and often enough it's impossible to obtain evidence depending on the definition). I'm not an agnostic because there are some definitions that I claim atheism...because the evidence is contrary to the definition or because the definition is inconsistent with itself. So, I claim the broader term: nontheism.

Basically I agree with everything you wrote there. I don't think I have ever met an "all out atheist", and if we marginalize the word to mean only those people it is rendered basically useless. Of course, it is a debtate of it's own if the "atheist community" is needed at all. It is, after all, kind of silly to define oneself after what you are not.

I don't have anything against pantheistic or even deistic ideologies, I just find them unnescessary. More of wordplay and idle pondering than religious thought.

Agnostic to show that I'm open minded.

But lately I've been tempted to just start calling myself a Discordian. I recently discovered the religion and it's brought me a big ball of laughter.

Googled, and that seems like an awesome religion. I better start calling myself a Discordian Nevermind it doesn't really seem to mean much.

 

[chaotic_lion]

Yikes, didn't know that part, but I guess it makes sense....considering...

 

[nanook]

some more thoughts:

i always saw the depth in immediate reality. i am still spooked out by some memories of my childhood. how i experienced phenomenal reality, when my parents took me to strange places. i looked at nature and saw how profound it is. when i discovered the world i had a mystical fascination for history (story of humans) or the past/the nature of time (see it in trees).

i could never connect iconic stories about some jesus guy to my involuntary experience of the the mystery of reality: those two soul-journeys of which my are parents are comprised of. all the hopes, expectations and incertitude at every moment in their lifes and how everything would turn out different anyway. the architecture of some church's touched me. to think of the monks who are buried there. how their whole identity is lost with times and incomparable to anything present. how unique every live is. when people marched in spring, drumming, to chase away the spirit of winter, i was fascinated by it and went with it. its not about believing in a spirit "of winter" its knowing, that the spirit of winter is our nature, our experience of it, our memory of it.

i never formed a concrete religious believe that is removed from perception, from human condition. i admit that i was a little paranoid at times, when wanking for the first times, below the dormer window. (by that time i had evangelical babtising lessons). during my rational phase my perception was distracted from the greatness of reality, into meaningless details. this long apathy has 'sensitized' me to pure perception, so now it scares me as something strange.

i value it again, but oust its immediacy. with vision logic it seems at times, as if the vastness or reality is something that concerns me personally, that must be mastered somehow, but due to structuring, ordering and thus measuring this vastness, its obvious that this gets way over my head. a child can assume security in the face of alienation by projecting, that his parents or ones physical aging will take care of that which is out of sight, in space or time. this basic trust is called faith, and it indispensable, to stay alive, to dare to participate in live.

it must be found in a transnational perspective of selflessness, because certitude is not something, that has ever been 'made up', it is something that has become acquainted through perception - it is the nature of reality, it can not be doubted. it has escorted us from the beginning.

it became subject to uncertainty, when we took it personal, in a stage of development, were objects of perception that concern us personally, were assumed to be on the outside, like our parents or our future. then we learned, that a lot of things on the outside are not to be taken "personally". so we lost it. it has to be integrated, but for this to happen, the personality structure, which distinguishes between personal inside and "strangeness that does not concern me" must die. transformed into a structure that orders phenomenal reality, without removing anything from it. this is only about being alive.

 

[Morpheus]

Could you make that post a little less of a wall of text? It's painful to read.

 

[slant]

Googled, and that seems like an awesome religion. I better start calling myself a Discordian Nevermind it doesn't really seem to mean much.

I almost feel calling myself a Discordian cancels things out! One 'religious' teaching from the unorganized religion:

Never Believe Anything You Read ( in reference to Principia Discordia)


I also feel like since it's mostly a mock religion, I might offend some people. Offending people in your life is unavoidable however.

--

Spirituality and Religion I can't even begin to understand. It's so perplexing. I don't see why people even need to believe in some 'higher power' or something 'outside of the material world'. But it is a good thing. It brainwashes people into instilling similar moral values so that a lot less people are running around randomly killing people. In a sense, I think Religion is what 'civilized' humanity. Now I think we've grown to a point where we don't need Religion anymore to know what's right or wrong. Eventually, hopefully, we'll move away from the churches and advance further.

Religion to me, is primitive.

 

[Morpheus]

I almost feel calling myself a Discordian cancels things out! One 'religious' teaching from the unorganized religion:

Never Believe Anything You Read ( in reference to Principia Discordia)


I also feel like since it's mostly a mock religion, I might offend some people. Offending people in your life is unavoidable however.

--

Spirituality and Religion I can't even begin to understand. It's so perplexing. I don't see why people even need to believe in some 'higher power' or something 'outside of the material world'. But it is a good thing. It brainwashes people into instilling similar moral values so that a lot less people are running around randomly killing people. In a sense, I think Religion is what 'civilized' humanity. Now I think we've grown to a point where we don't need Religion anymore to know what's right or wrong. Eventually, hopefully, we'll move away from the churches and advance further.

Religion to me, is primitive.

I do underestand the urge to believe in something. I do, however, think that to believe in a god who talks to you on a two way radio and wants you to do his bidding, is destructive.

I don't believe morals have anything to do with religion or ever had: people know instinctively that killing others is not a good thing to do. And when they don't, religious belief doesn't make a difference as all the vile things done in the name of religions demonstrate.

Actually I think that rather than having civilized humanity, religion has struggled to keep us from advancing.

About the Discordianism: as I read Principia Discordia I notice, that there actually seems to be a philosophy, maybe not religious, more of a zen-like there behind the humour. And I think it's a very tolerant and positive philosophy.

 

[slant]

I do underestand the urge to believe in something. I do, however, think that to believe in a god who talks to you on a two way radio and wants you to do his bidding, is destructive.

I don't believe morals have anything to do with religion or ever had: people know instinctively that killing others is not a good thing to do. And when they don't, religious belief doesn't make a difference as all the vile things done in the name of religions demonstrate.

Actually I think that rather than having civilized humanity, religion has struggled to keep us from advancing.

About the Discordianism: as I read Principia Discordia I notice, that there actually seems to be a philosophy, maybe not religious, more of a zen-like there behind the humour. And I think it's a very tolerant and positive philosophy.

Well, yes. I agree that now it's holding us back. But hundreds of years ago when the first religions were developed it helped to give people jobs and establish a way that everyone could relate to each other. What destroyed Religion's original philosophy was power. When ideas grow and gain value, eventually someone comes along and tries to corrupt it. Now the religions are so large and impersonal that I believe they are tearing us apart, ruining the orignal idea that it had stemmed from.

I wonder if anything can exist without being taken over and corrupted. Just about everything I can think of is in some way about money or status.

 

[Morpheus]

Well, yes. I agree that now it's holding us back. But hundreds of years ago when the first religions were developed it helped to give people jobs and establish a way that everyone could relate to each other. What destroyed Religion's original philosophy was power. When ideas grow and gain value, eventually someone comes along and tries to corrupt it. Now the religions are so large and impersonal that I believe they are tearing us apart, ruining the orignal idea that it had stemmed from.

I wonder if anything can exist without being taken over and corrupted. Just about everything I can think of is in some way about money or status.

Religions propably originated to explain the nature: when sun shone, gods were pleased, and when it stormed, they were angered. Then the smarter cave men, who didn't quite believe it, startet abusing the fears of others, calling themselves priests and commanding the kings. For who would dare rise against one who speaks for gods?

I think that religions were corrupted the same day they were born.

 

[Duty]

I don't see why people even need to believe in some 'higher power' or something 'outside of the material world'. But it is a good thing. It brainwashes people into instilling similar moral values so that a lot less people are running around randomly killing people.

Excuse me while I choke and spit irony out of my nose.

 

[slant]

Excuse me while I choke and spit irony out of my nose.

And why don't you expand on that.

 

[Duty]

And why don't you expand on that.

Didn't mean it in a spiteful way, it was just funny that you claimed religion helps people to not go around killing others, when it is the cause of the majority of major moral traumas inflicted on the human race.

 

[slant]

Didn't mean it in a spiteful way, it was just funny that you claimed religion helps people to not go around killing others, when it is the cause of the majority of major moral traumas inflicted on the human race.

True. I think it's pretty messed up either way.

But the way I see it there is no right or wrong, only choices. In that way no religion could ever apply to me. Morals do not apply to me.