[Illuyankas]

He worships glass windows.

[Aptorian]

Avatar, on Feb 22 2009, 09:52 PM, said:

Oh wait, and a part-time discordian as well (http://en.wikipedia....i/Discordianism)

Quote

It was founded circa 1958–1959 by Malaclypse the Younger

A HA! Malaclypse has been up to naughty things!

[Soulessdreamer]

Agnostic

I do not believe in religion and I have no faith.

If there is a god s/he has yet to reveal herself to me until then I will follow my conscence (sp?).

If god does exsist then as long as s/he doesn't fuck wtih me I won't have to fuck her/him up.

Eienstien expressed it best. (paraphrasing) Energy is everywhere and in all things and it never dies it is only transformed into different forms. And just because we can not see or understand those forms doesn't mean we should fear the unknown or stop looking.

Besides when I die you and everything else I created will cease to be

TTFN

[Avatar]

Pantheism (Greek: πάν ( 'pan' ) = all and θεός ( 'theos' ) = God, it literally means "God is All" and "All is God") is the view that everything is part of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God and This is permeating the world. In short: "God is in the whole" (while in the panentheism: "The whole is in God"). This means that the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent.

Panentheism (from Greek πᾶν (pân) "all"; ἐν (en) "in"; and θεός (theós) "God"; "all-in-God") is a belief system which posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe.[1]
It is important to distinguish the panentheism from the pantheism. In short, for the pantheism: "God is in the whole", while in the panentheism: "The whole is in God". This means that the Universe in the first is practically the Whole itself, while in the second the universe and God are not ontologically equivalent.

(from wikipedia)

Anyway, for now i most devotely pray for a divine cold Heineken...

[Cause]

I still find it interesting that we have such a large atheist community. It must be statistically significant

[Aptorian]

I think that technically speaking a great majority of the educated people in the west are atheists.

It's not a shocking demographic.

Personally I voted agnostic because I'm a sceptical optimist... there has to be something else out there right? I just hope it's not a christian god.

[HoosierDaddy]

The correlation is that as education goes up, belief in a specific religion goes down (agnosticism, atheism).

Edit: Maybe it's wealth, actually. Hmmmmm. Can't remember.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 23 February 2009 - 09:28 PM

[Cold Iron]

I think with the financial superiority that Christian nations have, the citizens feel less of a drive to identify themselves as Christians. There is a sense of independence that comes with wealth that no other religious group enjoys on the same scale. I know despite my education if I had family members living in poverty I would feel more compelled to bolster our sense of community by religious association.

So it's not just the smarter you are the more you realise religion isn't real (as seems to be the inference here) but also the richer you are the less you need to rely on your community for support.

ETA: Beat me to it hoos

This post has been edited by Cold Iron: 23 February 2009 - 10:17 PM

[Zanth13]

Tough question,

I used to be a die hard christian, and I would love to get all that faith back, but ive been to many places and seen to much needless murder/death/destruction ect to probably ever reach the level I had as a younger man... but surly i wasnt just an idiot back then, there had to be something right?

maybe I was just brain washed, I just think there is a huge question of "why" in the world that christianity has failed to answer...

well who knows, maybe if i ever go back to church again i can be brainwashed and be a happy follower... I dont know, im just to cynical at the moment to try and think of religion...

[Soulessdreamer]

A poor man is a pious man.

Traditionally those societies which are the most persecuted are the most devout. Jews, Irish, Blacks etc the same can be said for neigbourhoods.

TTFN

[Aptorian]

I can not believe in the Christian god because if I thought this magical ghost in the heavens really existed, I had to begin considering whether the Norse gods were real aswell, and the hinduistic pantheon, and satan, and fucking spacemarshians that descended and threw our souls into some kind of volcano and Tom Cruise is our messiah.

If you believe in Jehova, why wouldn't you believe other gods existed aswell? Why does God have a monopoly on faith?

[Satan]

Because that's the ultimatum that 'He' puts before you: believe in Him and all is hunkadory after death, just as long as you don't buy into all the other fake gods bullshit.

I don't think you should put too much emphasis on the correlation between level of education an individual has acquired and apparent atheism. First of, education is too diverse both in its method of teaching and the end product that it would be impossible to measure the level of education to any precise degree in any individual. Second, there are far too many highly educated religious people in this world for that theory to hold any water. I suspect (which means, I've read of other people who suspect...) that the large amount of atheism in universities and colleges is a product of the culture that has evolved in those institutions over the last hundred years, not that the people there are any more intelligent or knowledgable than others.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

I'm a born again heathen, and proud of it!


I don't like most of the current gods, they're all misogynistic, manipulative control-freaks, except for maybe Buddha. He seems ok, I guess. The old Norse gods were awesome, but they're all dead so they're really not an option.

I think I'll just stay god-free. It has worked just fine so far.

[Soulessdreamer]

Aptorian, on Feb 25 2009, 01:10 AM, said:

I can not believe in the Christian god because if I thought this magical ghost in the heavens really existed, I had to begin considering whether the Norse gods were real aswell, and the hinduistic pantheon, and satan, and fucking spacemarshians that descended and threw our souls into some kind of volcano and Tom Cruise is our messiah.

If you believe in Jehova, why wouldn't you believe other gods existed aswell? Why does God have a monopoly on faith?

Satan doesn't exsist. read the bible, he's not in it. he is a fiction created by the ignorant from a polyglot of ideas and mythos even the name is derived from the arabic word for devil or dijin "shaitan".

Most of what we understand today as christenanity (sp?) is based wholely or in part on lies, misunderstandings or half truths.

TTFN

[Cause]

Actually satan is from the old testament. Where he is hasatan. Ha in hebrew is the. Its added to and pronounced as one word with whatevr it is attached to. It means the accuser. He is an angle who tests souls before they ge to heaven. Puriifying them not punishing them. He is directly under gods control

[bubba]

The Devils greatest trick........

[Obdigore]

Bubba, on Feb 27 2009, 01:52 PM, said:

The Devils greatest trick........

Was the Three Wise Men.

[bubba]

...no just me.

[Ljos]

I'm new to the forum, and found this thread quite interesting :-)

I am a lutheran christian.

I haven't bothered to read through the whole thread, but I have observed there is a question about education and faith. I believe the rapid reduction in christian people in the western countries the last centuries is more due to the fact that the church has lost it's head position in sosiety. People who earlier felt they had to go to church and confess themselves as christians do not have to do so today. I believe that there are just as many true christians (you have to excuse me the phrasing here) today as there has ever been before. When it comes to education I can't say I see any coresponance between intelligance and belief. I myself study Physics, and I know many others who do. There are a lot of christians who take higher education, and there is no problem with accepting science and still being a christian.

You have to excuse my bad phrasing and typoes. I haven't been writing english for some time...

[MTS]

If you want a good book on that subject, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism is a great read.