Religions/Beliefs of Browncoats
POSTED BY: EngineAngel
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 10, 2025 01:24
VIEWED: 30205
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I agree. Unfortunately, it is seldom the case in reality. I love sitting down over coffee to discuss things like this with people of all types, but something someone says gets misconstrued, and the next thing you know there's a huge arguement about who's right and who's wrong...oy! Religion, or lack of, should not be the "whole" of a person...if that's all they are, then they are just spoiling for a fight in my opinion. Down here (AL), some people introduce themselves as "Hi, I'm so-and-so! I'm a -insert denomination here-. What church do you go to?" When the answer is "I don't", the immediate response is "Well, why not?!?"...just goes downhill from there. It's gotten better in the last few years...I just avoid people all together! 
Kidding. Just wish real life discussions on these subjects could be as civil as this one is turning out to be.
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Yes, talking about religion is not good. Even though I don't live in the Bible Belt, I may as well - I've inadvertently surrounded myself with hardcore Christians.
Oh, wait, it wasn't inadvertent - I was one. Not to make that sound bad in general; but what I'm talking about really is bad. If there are people more fundamentalist than my friends, I would probably kill them right after we met.
The only religious people I can't stand are the ram-it-down-your-throat missionary types. Bleh!
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Go to http://richlabonte.net/tvvote/ and vote Firefly!
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I'm both a philosophical atheist and a dogmatic atheist.
As I understand it, the proposition of God's existence is non-falsifiable; therefore there is no way to prove (through any argument or evidence) the existence or non-existence of God.
My starting position is that I do not already believe there is a Judeo/Christian/Muslim God, any more than I believe there is a pantheon headed by Zeus, and I am (as explained above) unlikely to hear an argument or be presented with evidence to change that belief.
That said, I find myself becoming mellower over the subject of religion as I get older, and I acknowledge that spirituality seems to be built into the human psyche, for no doubt evolutionarily satisfactory reasons. My spiritual desires are more or less satisfied by the mantra, "The world is a sacred place, and I am a part of the world", as explicated in Daniel Quinn's novel _The Story of B_.
Indigo S.
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Quote:
Originally posted by cozen:
Just to be fair, I'm one of those that understands "God" is a creation of m/woman, likely man, eh? However, I'm not quite so arrogant as to believe I may not be mistaken. It's just that certain horrid circumstances in my life haven't left me predisposed to accepting blind faith.
To those who believe: I say, peace be with you. I've no argument with any of you.
Nice, Cozen. Wish everybody were as enlightened as all that. The only thing that gripes me is that some people confuse tolerance with subjective relativism.
Now if we can just avoid the multiple-account-having folks, we can get on with our pleasant little conversation.
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Quote:
Originally posted by IndigoStarblaster:
As I understand it, the proposition of God's existence is non-falsifiable; therefore there is no way to prove (through any argument or evidence) the existence or non-existence of God.
That's the quandary in a nutshell. The trouble seems to be that God is not available to empirical (that is, inductive) study--so the only way to make positive arguments for God's existence is via deductive arguments. Obviously, the problem with that is that even if you've got a logically valid argument (e.g. "If the moon is made of cheese, then God exists; the moon is made of cheese: therefore, God exists") there is much debate on the truth of the propositions of said arguments, so God can't be proven to all people beyond the shadow of a doubt. On the other hand, in order to disprove God, you would have to start with the premiss, "Given any X, X is not God", and there is just no way to consider and reject every possible X.
The philosophical atheists solve this problem (in a way) by claiming that there is no sound (that is, logically valid with true premises) argument for God's existence; therefore, there is no good reason for believing in God. This is an interesting position, because it does not deny that God exists--merely that there's no good reason to believe that he does.
The dogmatic atheist, on the other hand, believes that there is no such entity as God at all. But because, as you pointed out, "God exists" is non-falsifiable, they must hold this belief on faith without empirical evidence. So in a way, it would appear that to be dogmatically atheist requires faith after all.
Interesting, no?
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You put it very well, Causal. One minor quibble, though -- I think "faith" is somewhat stronger than the term "belief".
For myself, I wouldn't say I have "faith" that there is no God, because I think that would imply I'm going to stick to my proposition even in the face of contrary evidence, or that I think my position will be borne out by supporting evidence someday.
Rather, I would say that right now I "believe" there is no God. I'm not sitting on the fence about it, like an agnostic; I both think and feel there is no God. But it is perfectly possible that I might experience a stroke/revelation (take your pick) someday that I will experience as a spiritual event, and I don't think I have any faith such as to preclude the possibility that that experience will change my mind.
What kind of tickles me is the knowledge that, once changed, my mind would be set to a new position and it would be nigh on impossible to argue me back to my former position :)
Indigo S.
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Causal, interesting atheist definitions. Not sure what you mean by faith in that context, though. I have faith in things, even without having a god to base the faith on; faith in myself and faith in others. Dogmatic atheist may not be the best way to describe those of us who do not believe there is a higher power, although it is kind of funny! 
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In addition to what I said before:
The belief of my people is usually hard to grasp for alot of folks. The belief is that this world is seperated by the next by but a slim veil. Many of the rituals and meditation are used to contact not only the parts of ourselves that lay dormant, but the dead who dwell in the next world. Not to say that there is or isn't a god, but in the next world we are joined with the driving/creating force. In actuality, birth, life, and death are the same thing. Once the body has passed, the spirit is given one year to purify before moving on. Varied forms of rituals in many different tribes allow a spirit to do so. The only way to describe it is Einstien's theory that since everything is made up of energy, when people die they dissipate to infinity. He was not the first person to think this way.
It was also common amongst the people to believe that the good and bad energies must find somewhere to go. So when we die, those closest to us could be inflicted or enlightened by or thoughts and actions. Its all energy and has to go somewhere.
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nvghostrider
Who are your people?
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