331–340 of 368 posts
I am an atheistic Jew. A Jew can be defined as a member of the religion or as a member of the ethnic group; this often causes confusion.
Especially when someone claims to be a member of an ethnic group because their parents were of the corresponding religion.
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Studies have been done on the effect of (other people's) prayers in curing a patient. They've all shown no effect, but let's say the experiment had shown convincingly that prayers of the followers of a specific religion result in major improvements to the patients' health. Would you still say the question was meaningless? If not, how can a question be meaningless if it depends on the result of an experiment?
What you ask is whether the question remains meaningless when confronted by strong evidence towards the existence of a godlike supernatural being that answers to prayers of a given group. I guess the question will remain meaningless until such evidence is uncovered.
I guess the question will remain meaningless until such evidence is uncovered
Another reason (a stronger one, in my opinion) is that this question is purely a matter of belief and therefore outside of the realm of science. Which may be another explanation why some people refuse to consider the question.
Perhaps people who grew up in a household loosely practicing a major religion are less likely to see their religion as part of their cultural heritage and therefor more likely to leave it?
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You have presented the only religious argument I can't actually argue with. I can only humbly say I haven't had the same experience as you, and if I did, I would freak out.
I think you're being too generous to this kind of argument. I'd say it's "the only religious argument I can't immediately dismiss". One way of proceeding to argue with it, for example, would be to say, "how do you know you're not mad?". [Amusingly half way through writing this comment, this radio programme started: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/pZ-Jq-iaTOia... It's about an object that apparently pe…
The other side of that sword is that the personal religious experience argument isn't especially convincing to others, either.
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There's actual paganism, which is gone. If you ever hear someone say "nobody seriously thinks Thor exists anymore", they're talking about paganism. In recent decades, people (for whatever reason) decided to try and restart paganism--if you meet a "pagan" today, they're actually following one of these reconstituted religions. I personally have trouble taking neopaganism seriously, largely because I've never known any…
If your only experience of OSS was Richard Stallman, you might dismiss everyone who contributes to open source software as a bearded lunatic. There's a lot of very serious and studious Pagans out there, but they don't tend to be as obviously 'look at me, I'm SPOOKY' as the kids you're talking about. For a trivially easy to find example, consider the Pagan Federation. In Scotland they work with government interfaith g…
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What you ask is whether the question remains meaningless when confronted by strong evidence towards the existence of a godlike supernatural being that answers to prayers of a given group. I guess the question will remain meaningless until such evidence is uncovered.
I guess the question will remain meaningless until such evidence is uncovered I doubt people who think the question is meaningless will be looking for answers. This is one reason such "evidence" may never be available. Another reason (a stronger one, in my opinion) is that this question is purely a matter of belief and therefore outside of the realm of science. Which may be another explanation why some people refuse…
Science folks my return to the question in the future, when there is a hypothesis to test. Right now, it can't. Trying to answer a question by throwing reason out the window cannot be called trying very hard...
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I have to respectfully disagree. I think you have your definitions mixed up. Agnosticism is 'There may be a god, but I don't care enough to claim one way or the other', I think the 'fence sitting' argument is good. Atheism is: 'There is no god' ie, Richard Dawkins Atheism is a stronger claim than Agnosticism.
Your description of agnosticism is also wrong; you described apatheism. Agnostic: Unsure. Apatheist: Doesn't care. Atheist: Rejects theism.
I don't believe there is a god, so I am Atheist. I also don't think the answer to "is there a god?" can be answered definitiely. That makes me Agnostic. I also think that since the answer cannot be determined, the question is a silly one. That makes me an Apathist too.
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Well there is evidence but it's not evidence that you're presently accepting. The Bible is a sort of evidence and people's testimony is as well. For my part I believe in God because he speaks to me regularly and I'm the last person you'd expect that to happen to. I was minding my own business when I started hearing from God. Everyone I knew at the time was totally shocked and it took me over two years to accept what…
How did you know it was god? How did you rule out being mad and hearing voices?
I was told to read the Bible and after reading the gospel of Matthew I was told that what I was reading was reliable and to be trusted entirely.