Atheism & Agnosticism a subforum of Religion & Spritually...

runswithascript

Ironymuch?

Agnosticism could possibly be categorized as a religious outlook but Atheism certainly cannot. What genius came up with this? Please qualify your decision...

Thomas_S_Hunterson

We're all mature enough not to nit-pick largely irrelevant things.

Darts a sport? pfffft;)

seamus

Where else would you put it?

Beruthiel

Religion & Spirituality

Atheists can still be spiritual you know...

Dave!

The section Religion and Spirituality is surely for forums whose purpose is the discussion of religious and spiritual matters. This forum concerns itself quite blatantly with religious matters. You don't have to actually believe in something to discuss it -- as is the case here.

There's also a "Skeptics Corner" subforum under "Paranormal".

Dades

What everyone said.

Except the OP.

Zillah

And how the hell could Agnosticism be described as a religion?

Asiaprod

Beruthiel wrote: »

Atheists can still be spiritual you know...

+1:)

seamus

Besides, atheism cannot exist without theism.

There's one for the noggin

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

it's always confused me how atheists can be 'spiritual'. I would have assumed that atheists were by and large materialists.

seamus

Damn those materialistic Buddhists!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

I can't wait until I'm reborn as argon.

Rev Hellfire

seamus wrote: »

Damn those materialistic Buddhists!

I've never quite understood how Buddhists are automatically lumped in with atheists.

With entities like Brahma and Sakka along with a host of other supernatural entities which feature in the religion, the idea that it is a atheist creed seems odd.

I would have placed it in the agnostic camp in that while they exist they don't seem to require absolute worship in the western sense.

Perhaps I've been misinformed.

pH

Dave! wrote: »

The section Religion and Spirituality is surely for forums whose purpose is the discussion of religious and spiritual matters. This forum concerns itself quite blatantly with religious matters. You don't have to actually believe in something to discuss it -- as is the case here.

There's also a "Skeptics Corner" subforum under "Paranormal".

How's getting the non-drinkers forum moved to be a sub-forum of "Beer & wine & Spirits" going?

Dave!

I have no interest in doing that, but it wouldn't bother me at all bud... As I said, Skeptics' Corner is a sub-forum of Paranormal; the outrage is conspicuously absent.

I don't think there's a science to where the admins decide to place forums.

runswithascript

Beruthiel wrote: »

Atheists can still be spiritual you know...

Mordeth wrote: »

it's always confused me how atheists can be 'spiritual'.

It confuses everyone who understands what the two words mean. The term spirtual atheist is just as ridiculous as christian scientist.

Zillah wrote: »

And how the hell could Agnosticism be described as a religion?

ag·nos·ti·cism (āg-nŏs'tĭ-sĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge.
2. The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.

I said possibly because agnostics are on the fence, it is not belief but it is not disbelief so it's closer to religion then atheism will ever be and for you or anyone reading this to whom the notion may occur please spare us the whole "technically we are all agnostics" / "well yes, I'm also a unicorn agnotic" debate.

Dave! wrote: »

The section Religion and Spirituality is surely for forums whose purpose is the discussion of religious and spiritual matters. This forum concerns itself quite blatantly with religious matters. You don't have to actually believe in something to discuss it -- as is the case here.

Acknowledged but...

pH wrote: »

How's getting the non-drinkers forum moved to be a sub-forum of "Beer & wine & Spirits" going?

Hear hear!

Dades

LA3G wrote: »

1. The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge.
2. The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.

I subscribe to both of the above.

I believe there can be no proof of gods existing or not existing, but I don't believe they do - which makes me an atheist.

Read this thread for a recent rant on the matter, if only the first post.

Zombrex

LA3G wrote: »

Ironymuch?

Agnosticism could possibly be categorized as a religious outlook but Atheism certainly cannot. What genius came up with this? Please qualify your decision...

welcome to 3 years ago ...

runswithascript

Dades wrote: »

I subscribe to both of the above.

I believe there can be no proof of gods existing or not existing, but I don't believe they do - which makes me an atheist.

Read this thread for a recent rant on the matter, if only the first post.

Of course something supernatural can never be proved to not exist because it is impossible to prove a negative so technically all atheists are really agnostic (as per your link). This does not mean the probability of a god's existence is 50% and oh, I did address this already in my last post already because I knew someone would bring this up...

LA3G wrote: »

I said possibly because agnostics are on the fence, it is not belief but it is not disbelief so it's closer to religion then atheism will ever be and for you or anyone reading this to whom the notion may occur please spare us the whole "technically we are all atheists" / "well yes I'm also a unicorn atheist" debate.

*I did had in unicorn atheist erroneously but hopefully people who frequent this forum would be familiar with the term unicorn agnostic and they would have spotted the mistake and taken my meaning.

Dades

LA3G wrote: »

technically all atheists are really agnostic

LA3G wrote: »

Agnosticism could possibly be categorized as a religious outlook

So what exactly is the problem with the forum sitting in the Religion & Spirituality category?

LA3G wrote: »

This does not mean the probability of a god's existence is 50% and oh, I did address this already in my last post already because I knew someone would bring this up...

Who brought what up now?

pH

LA3G wrote: »

Of course something supernatural can never be proved to not exist because it is impossible to prove a negative so technically all atheists are really agnostic (as per your link).

This is just not true, people trot out the "it is impossible to prove a negative" yet science does it all the time, theories are proposed and via experimentation they are proved to be wrong, good examples are Luminiferous Aether and Lamarckism. In fact in science exactly the opposite is true, you can't prove a positive, all you can say for any of our current theories is "no one has proved them wrong yet!".

When it comes down to it, the only things that you can't prove are things for which no tests exist, so "can't prove a negative" is just wrong, "can't prove things you can't prove" is better but then merely a tautology.

runswithascript

LA3G wrote: »

Of course something supernatural can never be proved to not exist because it is impossible to prove a negative so technically all atheists are really agnostic (as per your link).

Dades wrote: »

So what exactly is the problem with the forum sitting in the Religion & Spirituality category?

As stated previously, only agnostic insofar as we are about unicorns, leprechauns, flying spaghetti monsters and tooth fairies. I'm sure we've all read Dawkins and know about what it is I speak...

Dades wrote: »

Who brought what up now?

Unicorn, flying spaghetti monster and tooth fairy agnostics (atheists) - as per your link.

Dave!

I have no idea what's going on now.....

runswithascript

pH wrote: »

This is just not true, people trot out the "it is impossible to prove a negative" yet science does it all the time

Semantics.

I believe in absolute truths where they are viable. It is impossible to prove a negative regarding questions about all the supernatural (outside of nature and the universe (multiverse etc etc), i.e - nonexistent) gods.

"So go ahead, prove there's no god..."

pH

LA3G wrote: »

"So go ahead, prove there's no god..."

Fine, first tell me what's the difference between a universe with a God and a universe without one, then I'm sure science can work on it. It's definitely not semantics, you've basically rephrased it as "you can't prove what you can't prove", which is banal, whereas "you can't prove a negative" would be quite interesting, if only it was true.

Dades

Dave! wrote: »

I have no idea what's going on now.....

Phew! I thought it was just me...

The Mad Hatter

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

I've never quite understood how Buddhists are automatically lumped in with atheists.

With entities like Brahma and Sakka along with a host of other supernatural entities which feature in the religion, the idea that it is a atheist creed seems odd.

I would have placed it in the agnostic camp in that while they exist they don't seem to require absolute worship in the western sense.

Perhaps I've been misinformed.

As I understand it...

First of all, there are many, many sects to Buddhism. Some believe in gods and worship them (a bit), some believe in gods but don't worship them, some don't believe in gods at all. The general consensus, if I recall correctly, is that it doesn't matter whether gods exist or not, because we should be more concerned with what happens in the physical world.

The Buddha said not to believe anything you have been told by anyone - even him (though I'm heavily paraphrasing here) - until you have tested it for yourself and found it to be true.

Some people just adopt the philosophies of Buddhism without the spiritual teachings, and as such there are atheist Buddhists and even (a limited number of) Christian Buddhists.

Asiaprod

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

As I understand it...

Very nice MH

The Buddha said not to believe anything you have been told by anyone - even him (though I'm heavily paraphrasing here) - until you have tested it for yourself and found it to be true.

I believe in this approach...

Some people just adopt the philosophies of Buddhism without the spiritual teachings, and as such there are atheist Buddhists and even (a limited number of) Christian Buddhists.

Buddhists are definitely an insane lot:D

Zillah

LA3G wrote: »

I said possibly because agnostics are on the fence, it is not belief but it is not disbelief so it's closer to religion then atheism will ever be

Agnosticism is closer to religion than atheism in the same way that a football is closer to planetdom than a golf ball.

runswithascript

LA3G wrote: »

I said possibly because agnostics are on the fence, it is not belief but it is not disbelief so it's closer to religion then atheism will ever be

Zillah wrote: »

Agnosticism is closer to religion than atheism in the same way that a football is closer to planetdom than a golf ball.

Agnosticism is closer to religion than atheism is.

Agnosticism is closer to religion than it is to atheism.

The former is what I said, the latter what you misconstrued it as - there's a big difference.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

LA3G wrote: »

Agnosticism is closer to religion than atheism is.

Agnosticism is closer to religion than it is to atheism.

I disagree, I doubt there is any atheist who would refuse to convert in the presence of irrefutable proof of the existence of one or more gods.

An atheist is confidant that the proof will be non-forthcoming. An agnostic is not so sure.

Religious folks are miles away. Blind faith? No thanks.