What being an atheist means in practical terms

Scarcity tends to reinforce value in every other situation. I don't know why it wouldn't when it comes to the days that we live.

 

Neoatheists in this thread have yet to define how they are using the religion, most likely they have no clue and dont want to embarrass themselves.

I demand correct usage, neoatheists demand their usage is obscured in fog

 

Only for those who desire what is scarce.

 

How was the stalinist religion different than a guvmint?
you arent making sense again

 

If there is no afterlife or God, then there is no way for a God to offer us rewards or punish us in one. An 'afterlife' with a Heaven or a hell is actually the most cruel, the most unjust, the most manipulative concept I can imagine. One thing I was always sure of, even as a kid, this 'God' was horrible about communicating with me about anything, let alone his standards for my behavior. I never knew his expectations, I never knew if I was meeting them, and I had no clue if I would end up breaching his 'rules' right before I died. Now that is a depressing and fear inducing thought for anyone!

I was more than happy to give up any idea of meeting my parents and Grandparents again, or walking along golden paths full of melodious harp music to get peace of mind about a potential for eternal damnation, and suffering.

That's a real good deal, if you ask me.

 

Of course, there is no agnostic-atheist disclaimer, because there is no such thing as an agnostic-atheist.

It means you're not an Agnostic.

Only Atheists assume there is no God.

 

There are different atheists and I think their reasoning or unreasoning ranges from the purely emotional to the philosophical. Some deny the existence of a god after some trauma or emotional crisis. They go through an existential crisis and I don't know how deep their disbelief is. Others come to the conclusion after a lot of thought and learning. They have deeply held disbelief. A priest once told me that yes the belief is beyond logic but we must trust and have a leap of faith. I was born a skeptic and that doesn't work for me. He on the other hand, smarter and much better educated than I, that worked for him.

 

People can think what they want to think -- but their belief in a magic sky man influences domestic laws, foreign policy, and the like. So we are all impacted. I agree that there is little use talking about religion with people who claim to have a daily conversation with an imaginary being.

 

No trauma or crisis for me. I always knew, even as a child, that mythology was not real.

There is no need for religion to avoid an existential crisis. The meaning of life can be whatever one decides it should be. A life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll provides as much meaning as pondering the nuances of an invisible magic man in the sky.

Ask the priest for empirical evidence of his supernatural claims and refuse to accept his claim that belief in a God) is beyond logic. Believing in something without empirical evidence is not a sign of being smarter and better educated. It is a sign of not being educated in logic or critical thinking.

 

Organised religion has one of the worst track records for corruption in human history, from deeply interfering with politics ( what we know of south American Aztec systems, the political influences of prophets, shamans and witchdoctors, the shameless famioial associations between Popes and government throughout European history, the subsequent revolutions that finally freed citizens of this most destructive stitch-ups in history...France and Russia come to mind, to the current colouring of Roman Catholicism in politics in Eastern Europe).
It has been the source of most deaths in human history.
We finally see more clearly the shameless child abuse practised by those who were supposed to comfort little children, and the cover-ups that up to two years ago, still allowed the Church to hide the illegal and immoral acts.
The enormous wealth of the Christian church didn't come from donations on a Sunday. It came from things like the sale of relics, the gifts of wealthy patrons in exchange for eternal life, the state working with the church to acquire land and favours for privileges.
I doubt very much is ANY western country has indulged in the amount of corruption as has the Christian church and its various guises. I doubt any government has the same democratic deficit that the church has. What little democracy exists in the church is very inconsequential.
No wonder it is called "the Enlightenment" when humans started to peek out from under the cave known as the church and as religion.

 

I don't recall Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Aron Ra all calling their friends together on weekends to bow or prostrate before a mirror. That's just stupid.

While my pious and estranged wife is busy in a church pew in her Sunday best, listening to a man behind a lectern wearing a ridiculous white collar talk about how to live life, and standing up with her arms in the air saying "Hallelujah", I am at home watching TV/Youtube, playing a computer game, reading a book NOT considered sacred or still sleeping! If what I do is considered worshipping myself, perhaps English is not the language to use to make the distinction.

But what difference does it make whatever you label me? Somebody with 100% certainty there is no God and somebody who simply claims he cannot know will BOTH be absent from church.

It's not like the person who says "I don't know" will automatically say "but I'll say a prayer just in case he does exist"

 

It seems I don't know atheists as much as I thought I did looking at others on this thread concurring with you. I decided I was an atheist in 2016. At first I did not think much of it, but in 2020 during the height of the lockdown, I descended into a deep depression thinking how the universe and particularly my life are utterly meaningless within infinity. It was only when I picked up a belief in a more vague concept of deity (spiritual not religious as they say) that I overcame that depression and was able to get out of bed every day and go through the motions of living. I don't prescribe to the Christian religion so don't expect me to defend any Christian beliefs.

 

The difference is words mean things, and Agnosticism and Atheism are two different things.

Furthermore, being an Agnostic doesn't necessarily mean you won't attend church and/or adhere to some spiritual (and perhaps religious) beliefs.

Agnostic theism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_theism

Christian agnosticism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_agnosticism

All Agnosticism means is that one has the good sense and humility to acknowledge your physical and mental shortcomings, and those shortcomings are nothing to be ashamed about. Nature equipped us for survival and the perpetuation of our species - understanding the mysteries of the universe is not its concern.

In some respects, Agnosticism isn't much of a leap from the assertions of the Medieval churchmen who declared that Man could not possibly know God through Reason. The only way God could be comprehended was through faith and revelation, which is loosely and variously described as "fideism"

Fideism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism

That's precisely what Blaise Pascal and others have suggested.

 

it means a bit more than that, agnostic stands alone, it means you do not hold a religious position, therefore those claiming agnostic-christian, agnostic-atheist, agnostic-(any religious position) are contradicting themselves.

 

I get what you're saying and it makes sense, but I've looked at various sources and found more than one definition of the term.

Personally, I think this definition comes closest to my own idea and understanding of agnosticism:

It seems to me that there is a little wiggle room in there - particularly in the first definition - for faith, provided that one acknowledges that it is indeed faith and not conviction.

 

Squabbling over wording and demanding particular meanings are used for particular words, even as people are otherwise clear what they mean by what they say, is not a discussion of any substance. People can speak different languages.

If we try to talk about colour and our American friends deliberately refuse to understand unless we write it color, that isn't useful. Nor would it be useful to keep pretending we are talking about citrus when we discuss the colour orange.

 

Unfortunately the dictionaries only print popular usage thus promoting an ad populum fallacy for its readers to use out here. How its popularly used and how it was meant to be used are often 2 or more different things

Sure:

Thomas Huxley was openly skeptical, as the biographer Janet Browne describes:

....A few months later, he was to coin the word "agnostic" to describe his own position as neither a believer nor a disbeliever, but one who considered himself free to inquire rationally into the basis of knowledge, a philosopher of pure reason [...] The term fitted him well [...] and it caught the attention of the other free thinking, rational doubters in Huxley's ambit, and came to signify a particularly active form of scientific rationalism during the final decades of the 19th century. [...] In his hands, agnosticism became as doctrinaire as anything else--a religion of skepticism. Huxley used it as a creed that would place him on a higher moral plane than even bishops and archbishops. All the evidence would nevertheless suggest that Huxley was sincere in his rejection of the charge of outright atheism against himself. He refused to be "a liar". To inquire rigorously into the spiritual domain, he asserted, was a more elevated undertaking than slavishly to believe or disbelieve. "A deep sense of religion is compatible with the entire absence of theology," he had told [Anglican clergyman] Charles Kingsley back in 1860. "Pope Huxley", the [magazine] Spectator dubbed him. The label stuck." —Janet Browne[11]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism


What Does Agnosticism Mean?

In the religious sense of the word, agnosticism means neither believing in nor disbelieving the existence of God. Religious agnostics say “We don’t know whether there is a God or not; it cannot be known.”

The problem you are faced with using agnostic-xxxxx is that:
You cant rationally accept and reject atheism at the same time, unless you are a bird of course.
Likewise you cant rationally accept and reject theism at the same time, again unless you are a bird of course.

So thats how agnostic applies to theist, atheist, pantheist, whatever, continuing.

But that’s only one of the ways the term agnosticism is used.

In the general, non-religious sense, agnosticism means being undecided or uncommitted to a particular side of a debate or disagreement.

People who are politically agnostic don’t side with one political party or candidate. Someone who is brand agnostic is not loyal to any particular brand when buying products. In computing, “platform agnostic” is a term that describes software that runs well on different platforms. “Device agnostic” describes software designed to work on various devices, such as computers, tablets, or mobile phones.

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/what-is-agnosticism/

Its simply irrational if not delusional to join agnostic position with any other position since agnostic specifically means not taking a position.

 

Yawn. Get some new material.

 

I have correct answers 2+2 = 4, it will forever =4 no matter how you want to redefine it, and if you dont like it too bad, why dont you teach people the truth if its so painful to have the truth repeated every time someone comes up with 3 for their answer.

btw, 2+2=4

In essence Huxley claimed that all atheists and all theists are liars!

Are you one of those?

 

Catholic priests are highly educated in philosophies and other religions. Their abilities in logic and critical thinking are not in doubt. The problem is those abilities alone won't bring you to a belief in a god. As he said, trust in an idea and giving yourself over to that idea is the way. Some who had that trust lose it, others can't abandon reason.

 

Do you pray to a god or go to a church to engage in worship?

 

my religion is agnostic not atheist. I reject atheism as nonsense.

Well since you put it that way.....

I engage in worshipping my penisaurus and I pray it forever continues to rise to the occasion. There is no need for me to go to any church and show off.

Unlike atheists (and theists) I can prove my god is 100% real and grounded in fact, you cant prove your atheist beliefs, most dont even try.

 

Can you think of a different equation that expresses the value of the number 4?

 

The stated equation matches the conditions, sure if you want to pull the properties under examination in 'this' case out of context there are several equations that come up with 4, none of which apply because there is only one that matches the conditions under examination, your multitude of variants would no longer match the conditions, and I would have to flunk you. you arent 1/2 as sly as you think you are

 

On the contrary, the value of 4 can be expressed with an infinite number of equations. Similarly atheism can be expressed in different ways too.

Also, you continue to refuse to answer whether or not you pray to a God or worship in a place like a church. We both know why you refuse to answer that question.