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[Stevie]

About that thread i created about "Who is Atheist"

I went about it in the wrong way. Yeah i did want a general view with my "just reply yay or neigh" approach but i admit i made an arse of it. I was looking for general consensus and it appears we do have a split between the members, but I fecked up by ruling out debate by the initial post.

I would like to invite some lively debate in this thread because i do feel there are equally passionate arguments from both sides. Can we talk about it?

And maybe feel safe that we can share a few beers at some point in the future regardless?

[keasy]

Bit  obsessed getting are we ? 



Feel free, I'll always share a beer as I'm of and always have been of the standing that I know what I believe and accept that others believe different.


Without the need for some ultimately non conclusion debate. All these threads prove is that people think different to others.

[Thermalsig]

Bit  obsessed getting are we ? 

I think that if god existed, he wouldn't need to show himself in someone's waffles.                                 
http://www.etsy.com/listing/50048184/jesus-waffle-maker

[keasy]

Bit  obsessed getting are we ?  

I think that if god existed, he wouldn't need to show himself in someone's waffles.                                  
http://www.etsy.com/listing/50048184/jesus-waffle-maker

Sure.

I'm not a great believer myself in organised religion...but I like to think I'm able enough to think diversely enough not to  tar all religious thinkers with the same brush, especially the crakpot brush.

 

I'm hazarding a guess here...that you Thermal do not decree all peoples of a theist belief in the same pot as that link ?
Cause that is ultimately a cheap and weakened shot if not.

[Stevie]

i wouldn't say i was obsessed but i do feel passionate about it recently.

Offer up a little of your own conviction of faith... what makes you a believer..?

I have felt i was a non belielver since i was about 14 but never really had the conviction to say i didn't believe because i was scared of pain of eternal suffering!!! How fucked up is that??.

I went through a period of absolute terror and forboding that i would burn in hell for even the smallest of sins. Even though i'm not catholic i used to read the bible regularly because my grandfather was deeply religious and the material was readily availabe to me. It seemed like a horror story that was destined to come true.

It's now i realise that it's not real, and am happier for it. I'd hate for my kids to think that hell is a real place, or any of the other nasty crap was real.

[Wooster]

Imho the choice between the carrot or the stick (or as some have put it, bribery and terrorism) is probably the oldest con in the world.

[tricksterdude]

What makes us believe is faith... thats it. I know God exists. I don't ask anyone to prove to me that God doesn't  exist so I don't try to prove to them that he does. As for Richard Dawkins the man who doesn't believe in God, when you think about it what he is doing is going out and evangelising his beliefs and spreading his belief system and is building up his own band of followers yet he gets annoyed when Christian missionaries spread the word of God..... double standards there methinks. Personally I think he's a destroyer of hope and faith.. whether God exists or not, anything that makes people aspire to be a better person, whatever their belief system, can't be a bad thing. But, as I said to Keasy last night, I'll bet any money that the majority of atheists on their death bed will be secretly saying a wee prayer or two just in case they got it wrong.

For the record... I was 38 before I really really belived that God existed, before that I wasn't too sure so its not something I've carried from childhood and had indoctrinated in to me.

[Wooster]

Is there a difference between faith and belief?

I won't be saying a wee prayer on my deathbed, I don't even know any (I remember the o father who art in heaven bit, but after that I'm drawing a total blank). It's more likely that I'll be cursing my lack of foresight by placing my Faith in the NHS, in the Hope that they'll still be up to the job.

These kinds of threads are always terrible since there's those that do and there's those that don't and both sides probably reckon the other is mad.
The belief or non-belief in god isn't the problem, it's most of the systems that have sprung up to take advantage of belief that are the problem.

[Thermalsig]

I'm hazarding a guess here...that you Thermal do not decree all peoples of a theist belief in the same pot as that link ?
Cause that is ultimately a cheap and weakened shot if not.

I haven't said if I believe in god or not. I was raised southern baptist and I have family members who were catholic. Outside of politics, I've never more hypocrites than those in church on Sunday. People who drink them selves shit faced the night before at the bar(it was a small town and the local bar was the hang out) and then show up for church and play the piety card get no respect from me. I also at the same time have a deep respect for my grandma who is very religious. She herself uses her religion in reference for every part of her life and to me, you won't find a finer person in my blood family. One of the other things I have a problem with is the belief that only christians can be good and moral and lead good life. My wife is a person who I truly respect and has a higher morality level and more goodness in her heart for everyone than, more often than not, most christians I know. No I don't paint the brush widely Keasy. I just point out the hypocrisy I see and have seen being raised in the church and being a believer well into my mid 20's. Organized religion killed the faith thing for me. So many atrocities are committed by the churches against their followers. It took me a long time to shed my deep belief in god, but it gets easier to believe it was a good choice for myself everyday. I do not and never will look at a person of faith with disdain and anything but mutual respect until that person earns those feelings from me personally by their actions. I live in a very conservative and religious state and god is abused here politically and often. What I mean by that is that the religious conservatives use the religion card to often support positions that would take fundamental rights away from other citizens. All in all, it leads a person to one extreme or the other.

[keasy]

I do not and never will look at a person of faith with disdain and anything but mutual respect until that person earns those feelings from me personally by their actions

Very well said, that's how I operate too.
I take everyone by default as good regardless of religion, race etc until they earn any disrespect.
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As for me believing.

I am a Freemason, although not an active member I did take stewardship fior two years and then the office of Lodge Chaplain. In order to join Freemasonry it is a requirement that you believe in a higher being, or a great architect of the universe, regardless of what organised religion one comes from or doesn't come from.
I personally believe in there is a God as I have experienced feelings of a profound nature that confirm the mental reasoning that I believe the universe far to beautiful and immense to be random.
I don't often explain why as it is a very personal feeling and one that more often than not is met by mocking or some asshat atheist trying to destroy my faith/belief for reasons that I can only deduce as being a filler for some inadequacy of their own.
Woos it is no secret is a lifelong friend of mines, a guy whom I love deeply more so than my own brothers. He has atheist views and yet respects my beliefs, I find it a rarity amongst others, especially or specifically I should say on teh internets.

I don't preach my beliefs and I hate the likes of Dawkings on their mission to destroy others fundamental right to believe in something higher than themselves.

[Stevie]

My kids are both Catholic, and so is my wife, it was a joint choice to have them baptised,. I don't agree with the vast majority of the teachings but i don't tell my kids either that my belief is that our existence is essentially meaningless. That's not to be confused with worthlessness, our lives are full of meaning and reason without the need for a God.

[keasy]

People don't need god just for a sense of meaning or worth.


either you feel there is a god or you don't, simples.

[Thermalsig]

People don't need god just for a sense of meaning or worth.
either you feel there is a god or you don't, simples.

That is an incorrect statement. I know many people who think differently than that. It would be nice if that were true though.

[keasy]

People don't need god just for a sense of meaning or worth.
either you feel there is a god or you don't, simples.

That is an incorrect statement. I know many people who think differently than that. It would be nice if that were true though.

It isn;' incorrect at all, it's exactly how I feel about it so it can't be possibly be incorrect, it may not pertain to everyone but it's not incorrect.

[Thermalsig]

It isn;' incorrect at all, it's exactly how I feel about it so it can't be possibly be incorrect, it may not pertain to everyone but it's not incorrect.

Oh, so you were stating your opinion.