athiesm

I think that believing that there is a super natural being takes the beauty out of the world. The world is 6.1 billon people all making decisions which affect and change the course of the world and to me that is beautiful. To believe that somebody is controlling it all is to me taking the beauty out of the world.

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[This message has been edited by gmtbh (edited 10-18-2001).]

Your comment implies that people believe in the supernatural being in order to make the world more beutiful. Could it be that the belief arises from what they find ugly about the world? Imagine yourself in a crowded subway station where far too many people are waiting for the next train. They are agitated and intent upon getting the best place to stand. They push you around in their self-centered efforts, constantly stepping on your toes. Wouldn't you find yourself dreaming of a better place? Wouldn't you long to get out of there as fast as you can? Wouldn't want to have another choice besides getting pushed off the platform in front of the next train?

"The world is 6.1 billon people all making decisions which affect and change the course of the world and to me that is beautiful."That is exactly the problem, all these people are screwing up the world. The few parts of the world left untouched by man are what is beautiful.

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Originally posted by redstang281:
That is exactly the problem, all these people are screwing up the world. The few parts of the world left untouched by man are what is beautiful.

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Interesting I thought that you lot believed the bit in the bible that said that God created everything for us to use as we saw fit?I agree about us humans trashing the place though.....

A few miscellaneous, scattered thoughts on the subject:"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.' -that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."Keats makes quite a statement. Of course, I find it to be preposterous. Since when is beauty the ultimate of ultimates in this world. Nonetheless, religion can be a source of beauty. Let me draw an example from my own family history a Jew, in Auschwitz, behind the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate, still able to look up at the sky and still believe in something, anything. I don't care if it is Adonai (the God of the Jews), evolution, Jesus, Krishna, science. The fact that that individual, amongst the ugliness, can find beauty, is amazing. And that, my friend, is why so many believe.Also, the first post in this strand implies that 6.1 people making decisions of their own free will is beauty. To say that implies that assumption that all who are religious believe in a deity that controls are action. I remind you that many, including liberal Protestants, Reform and Reconstructionist Jews, et cetera, believe in free will. The beauty of thought, free will, and action, is not dependent upon the absence of god.

Grendel?Do I know you?Allison (aka schrafinator)

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
Grendel?

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Do I know you?

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I don`t know he is a big, ugly, one armed fella (some Geat idiot ripped the other one off) do you know him?

I know someone who (sometimes) went by the name of Grendel from the Yahoo club "Skeptics.""Hootmagundy" was another ID of his.

I'm bringing this over from message 7 of the uniformitatianism topic
http://www.evcforum.net/cgi-bin/dm.cgi?action=msg&f=1&t=54&m=7#7From Websters:
Naturalism:
3)in philosophy, the belief that the natural world is the whole of reality and that there is no supernatural or spiritual creation, value, control, or significance: It holds that scientific laws can explain all phenomena.This definition contains a substantial athiestic theme: "there is no supernatural or spiritual creation"I wish to ponder "degrees of athiesm".Quite a while back, I had a discussion at the Yahoo Evolution versus creation site, with someone going by the name of unrepententathiestsinner (or something like that).Partly because of that discussion, I have come to view that there are 2 types of athiesm.1a)One who doesn't have a belief in God, or is openly uncertain about belief in God. This I call agnosticism. As I vaguely recall, the above unrepentent... considered himself to fall in this area.Another variation of this could be:
1b)One who doesn't have a belief in God, because he knows no reason to believe in God. Still call it agnosticism, or perhaps "soft" athiesm.2)One who believes there is no God. This I call "hard athiesm".Now, I believe the scientific method is to be agnostic (That is, within the scientific study; Certainly one can also be very thiestic in your personal beliefs).My question now is, is the athiesm in the above definition of naturalism variety 1 or variety 2?There is a real, albeit subtle difference between "No belief in God" and "Belief in no God" (belief there is no God).Moose------------------
Old Earth evolution - Yes
Godly creation - Maybe

I fall under agnostic.Atheism is as much a belief as religion. I "believe" there is no God, I "believe" there is a God. Either are baseless.I think that the borders need not be blurred. There is belief in God, absoluter rejectance of the belief in God, & neither (agnosticism).Anything falling in between can easily be defined as one or the other.eg. I'm agnostic BECAUSE the religious believe in God, Atiests don't. And I simply have no evidence either way.Mark
Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 01-15-2002]

I would think that any athiest or believer in God must be, to some degree, angnotic.I don't think any Christian believer can honestly say to him or herself "I have absolute faith and belief in God".Such faith is not humanly possible, except perhaps, to the brainwashed or the psycotic.Moose------------------
Old Earth evolution - Yes
Godly creation - Maybe

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Originally posted by minnemooseus:
I would think that any athiest or believer in God must be, to some degree, angnotic.

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I don't think any Christian believer can honestly say to him or herself "I have absolute faith and belief in God".

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Such faith is not humanly possible, except perhaps, to the brainwashed or the psycotic.

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Moose

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You have formulated your own answer. Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

So, is naturalism, as defined in message 9, agnostic or athiestic?Moose------------------
Old Earth evolution - Yes
Godly creation - Maybe

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Originally posted by minnemooseus:
So, is naturalism, as defined in message 9, agnostic or atheistic?

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Moose

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Really it depends on what happens if it is disproved...If its proponents stick dogmatically to it regardless then it is atheistic (of the hard sort)....If in the light of overwhelming new evidence people change their minds then it is agnostic.....

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Originally posted by minnemooseus:
So, is naturalism, as defined in message 9, agnostic or athiestic?

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Moose

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By that definition, atheist. If it maintains that the supernatural be excluded.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.