Your Religous Views

[Genoliger]

Right now I consider my self a agnostic erring more on the side of atheism. The problem though with that is that pisses my mom off greatly. She's a deeply religious Christian. Gets tiring arguing with her about religion. She thinks thats people who don't believe in god are all murderers and the like. Tried to tell her different and she just gave me a funny look.

[GojiFan]

Ask her if that makes you a murderer. Then one of the two will happen:

A) She says you aren't, and has an epiphany on people's religion or lack there of.
B) She says yes, and then you realize your mother is the religious psycho most people stereotype.

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

It totally is. The core deistic belief is that God created the world, set the laws of nature into motion, and then backed off, basically never interfering again. That's one step away from atheism, and the more we understand about nature the less possible it is to infer "design."

Deism was a cool school of thought back in the Enlightenment period. Freethinkers these days--thanks to philosophers such as Hume and Kant, breakthroughs in science, and the growing dominance of naturalism/materialism--have moved past deism to agnosticism/atheism, which is what I meant by the "beta atheism" remark. Granted, deism isn't totally dead, and some people hold beliefs that are along the deistic lines.

Deism does have some interesting spin offs, though. In Gnostic beliefs, you have a being named Demiurge. There is Yahweh, the creator, he essentially created the Universe and you have Demiurge, who shaped the Universe. Funny enough, Demiurge is also a malevolent being and often thought to have been the God in the Old Testament.

Deism does not rule out of the belief in other higher beings, its just rules out the belief that the Supreme Creator interferes with life.

Right now I consider my self a agnostic erring more on the side of atheism. The problem though with that is that pisses my mom off greatly. She's a deeply religious Christian. Gets tiring arguing with her about religion. She thinks thats people who don't believe in god are all murderers and the like. Tried to tell her different and she just gave me a funny look.

That's when you ignore her.

[SaiyanRider54]

Listen, whether you're an atheist or a person of faith, all I care about is how you treat other people, and how you conduct yourself through life. You can be a good person who believes in God, or a good person who does not. The converse is also true.

Anyone who judges you based upon anything other than your actions is a fool. That's the key ideal that the United States was founded on, but it seems to be the one people forget most often.

This is what I go by.
I'm a Pentecostal Christian BTW.

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rW ... re=g-all-u

Just gonna leave this right here.

[Jomei]

Tyson just doesn't want labels attached to him because he doesn't want to just focus on his irreligious perspective. That's totally understandable.

But let's be honest: he definitely doesn't hold out the possibility that Zeus or Thor exist. I can almost guarantee you that he doesn't hold out for the possibility that Yahweh is real. When scientists talk about being "agnostic," they're most likely talking about possibilities of what could be out there, not necessarily being "agnostic" toward any of the popular deities.

Part of the problem is that people are talking about different things. Like Richard Dawkins or hate him, but I find the following formulation helpful.

1) Strong theist. 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: "I do not believe, I know."
2) De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."
3) Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."
4) Completely impartial. Exactly 50 per cent. "God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."
5) Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."
6) De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."
7) Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one."

Most atheists would say they're a 6 because, as thinking people, evidence could change their minds. I suspect Tyson is a 6 as well, but certainly no lower than a 5. Totally understandable if he doesn't dig the "bunch of guys in a room talking about how they don't believe in God thing," because that does get very tiresome and circle-jerkish (hey, so does church ), but he's obviously an atheist-leaning skeptic.

Noam Chomsky, who for all practical purposes is also an atheist while avoiding having the term attached to him, makes some other interesting observations about the problem of labeling.

When people ask me if I’m an atheist, I have to ask them what they mean. What is it that I’m supposed to not believe in? Until you can answer that question I can’t tell you whether I’m an atheist, and the question doesn’t arise.

I don’t see anything logical in being agnostic about the Greek gods. There’s no agnosticism about ectoplasm [in the non-biological sense]. I don’t see how one can be an agnostic when one doesn’t know what it is that one is supposed to believe in, or reject. There are plenty of things that are unknown, but are assumed reasonably to exist, even in the most basic sciences. Maybe 90 percent of the mass-energy in the universe is called “dark,” because nobody knows what it is.

and another quote which seems to reflect a similar sentiment to Tyson's. I've grown to understand this feeling more over the past few years.

QUESTION: I want to ask you something about your views on religion, organized or otherwise. There are passing references in your material to church organizations and communities that you've visited or dealt with in the U.S. and also in Central America. You're often full of praise for the work they're doing; you cite their human-rights reports in your books, and so on. But on a more personal level, I'm interested in how you relate. By the light of your own atheist, Enlightenment-oriented philosophy, people who believe devoutly in supernatural phenomena like resurrection, miracles, and the rest might seem a little off their rocker. You wouldn't let that kind of mysticism pass uncriticized in the political sphere. How does it work in your relations with these people?

CHOMSKY: It basically doesn't come up. I mean, they know where I stand, I know where they stand. You could ask the question: How important is it to fight this battle, how important to try to convince people they shouldn't have irrational beliefs? I think it's reasonably important, and I do it when the thing comes up. But it's marginal to these pursuits. I don't let it get in the way.

[Oasis_S]

I don't think CONVICTION fits with the Strong atheist definition. Always thought it was just when one could say "I know there are no gods." One will often hear "So you know ABSOLUTELY that there are no gods?" when the idea is brought up, but there's a mistake being made there. We don't know ANYTHING absolutely 100%. Knowledge isn't a concept that deals with absolutes. So, I don't see much of a point in sticking that word in there. Maybe I'm just being pragmatic.

In the same way I can say "I know Harry Potter won't knock on my door tonight," based on the evidence I can come to the conclusion that "there are no gods."

PLUS AT THIS POINT IT SEEMS KIND OF TRIVIAL, so it doesn't seem useful to have conviction when it doesn't matter if you're wrong. Like, I know Legionmaster is dumb and Ridley will be playable in the next Smash.

[SoleMan]

Ask her if that makes you a murderer. Then one of the two will happen:

A) She says you aren't, and has an epiphany on people's religion or lack there of.
B) She says yes, and then you realize your mother is the religious psycho most people stereotype.

Yeah but...how do you know he's not a murderer? The Zodiac Killer claimed he was murdering for slaves when he went to Heaven, why don't you bring that up?

But really, you've gotta love religion: It's been the single most destructive force on the planet for the past 2000 years (Maybe longer, I wouldn't swear to that figure) It's caused wars, murder, conquering, disease, rape, torture, fear, angry, hate, suffering, Star Wars, pedophillia, and just about every other kind of pain imaginable. Hell, Christians worship a symbol of torture!

To someone who share's Ra's Al Ghul's philosphy of killing for the Earth, Religion is...well...a gift from God!

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

Jim, I think you missed the point of the video all together.

Its a more-or-less...why do you even care? Kind of thing.

Tyson makes a good point: it does not interest him, therefore, he does not care.

[wataru]

..anyone here have an interest in Scientology?

[Bret]

..anyone here have an interest in Scientology?

Your still interested in that?

[wataru]

..anyone here have an interest in Scientology?

Your still interested in that?

It's fun to read about. Some of it is actually useful. "Some" being none of the dogma.

[Jomei]

Jim, I think you missed the point of the video all together.

Its a more-or-less...why do you even care? Kind of thing.

Tyson makes a good point: it does not interest him, therefore, he does not care.

No, I do get it. I quoted people who said very similar things and commented that, in recent years, I've grown to relate to that feeling more and more. Tyson thinks as a scientist. Religion and God don't even factor in; but, as he said, without any good evidence, he's not going to believe in something.

I'm interested in promoting skepticism because I think, on the whole, religious beliefs (which are irrational) are bad for humanity. This is especially true when people use them to oppress others. However, I'll quote Chomsky again because I pretty much feel this way these days:

You could ask the question: How important is it to fight this battle, how important to try to convince people they shouldn't have irrational beliefs? I think it's reasonably important, and I do it when the thing comes up. But it's marginal to these (read: political, social, etc.) pursuits. I don't let it get in the way.

[Genoliger]

Well, tomorrow the Philosophy club at my college is hosting a debate between a Athiest and a Baptist priest. My family said their going so this should be interesting.

[omgitsgodzilla]

Oh man. I request video after the fact.

[Genoliger]

The college put the video of the debate up on facebook. I'll post the video in a little bit.

[omgitsgodzilla]

Awesome. Can't wait to see it, was there anything particularly explosive or did it stay pretty civil?

[GodzillaDude]

I am atheist and believe in the scientific theory of evolution. People are free to believe what they want but there are just to many plot holes for me to.