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Atheism is not believing in a God, not the lack of religion. Lacking religion is Apatheism. Cathalocism, Baptism, Protestant, and Roman-Catholic are all Christian faiths. Just want to know out of curiosity. I've noticed that a lot of people are converting to atheism, and would like to know if it's actually more popular than theism.
| Atheist | 40 | |
| Apatheist | 12 | |
| Christian (Any faith beleiving in Jesus) | 39 | |
| Other (Comments) | 15 |
Why do I feel like I've seen this question here before? Oh wait...
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religion-106853/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-do-you-follow-134008/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-are-you-175007/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religionfaith-109673/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-are-you-a-member-of-150588/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/which-religion-are-you-a-follower-of-166571/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religion-103501/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religion-104083/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religion-104422/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religion-105119/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-do-you-practice-119191/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-are-you-120130/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religion-126339/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-are-you-133167/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-are-you-a-member-of-158890/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-religion-are-you-110976/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/whats-your-religion-146193/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-is-your-religion-151133/
http://isitnormal.com/poll/what-are-your-religious-views-126525/
Neptune is the one true God. He giveth the storms that show man to be totally inconsequential in the scheme of things, like Arthur, Katrina or Andrew.
It's the scientific method. Theists make a claim that a god exists. They have no evidence. Therefore I reject their claim.
No, but there is proof towards disproving pretty much the entire bible, but then people just say stuff like, God put dinosaur bones in the ground to test our faith,
There is proof towards disproving the entire Bible? I somehow get the feeling you haven't read it.
Please disprove 1 Maccabees, Acts of the Apostles, The Letter to the Romans, 2 Kings or the Gospel of Matthew.
Or is it that you can only cite the stories you know from Genesis 1-11?
Dinosaur bones are in the earth because that is where they died. No question of faith at all.
I'm a Catholic and I definitely believe in dinosaurs. Fuck those ignorant ass fundamentalists. I don't really believe in Adam and Eve, for me most of the creation stuff is metaphorical.
Luckily in the UK nost of people I speak to like you believe the bible is a metaphor and also discredit some of the homophobic, misogynistic and pro rape section but I hear in America more Christians believe in the bible than don't, although luckily not to the levels of the westboro Baptist church.
"Cathalocism, Baptism, Protestant, and Roman-Catholic are all Christian faiths."
Not sure where you got that bit of information from but it's incredibly false.
Christianity is all religions believing in Christ. It's a group of religions with many commonalities, not one faith.
If you want to believe that then I'm fine with it. But Christianity is Christianity -- everything else is...well...everything else.
They are all denominations of Christianity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations
What part of that do you think is false?
Hm, it's like I understand it, but I don't. The link that is. And to be honest this is my very first time hearing about all these denominations of Christianity. I know what all those religions are but I've never thought of them as Christianity. However, I still think that those other religions can't be considered Christianity due to the fact that Christianity isn't only about believing in Jesus. Those other religions (and I don't mean to offend anyone by saying this) seem like watered down versions of the real thing and have no reward in store for those who follow them.
Also, I'm not a Christian, I'm not an atheist and I don't follow any other religions. So I don't have a biased opinion about this. It's just something I think personally, something I came to on my own.
Sorry if I've offended anyone.
I doubt you've offended anyone, I'm just not sure you fully understand.
Denominations are created when one or more fundamental difference is identified, usually in the interpretation of the teachings or base text.
For example:
Protestants believe that the Bible alone is the source of God’s revelation to mankind and teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin.
Catholics do not believe that the Bible alone is sufficient. They believe that Roman Catholic traditions such as purgatory, praying to the saints, worship or veneration of Mary etc. are of equal importance to the Biblical teachings.
So these denominations aren't diluted versions. If anything, they're often more 'concentrated', or 'distilled'. They are formed out of disagreements, but all stem from the original movement, whether it be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism etc.
As for having "no reward in store for those who follow them", I'm not sure I get you.
There is no proof that God exists, but also no proof that God doesn't exist. Maybe we should stop questioning this subject constantly and just enjoy our lives with what we can prove. There will never be an answer on this subject.
Zen Buddhist with a sprinkling of quantum theory and a dash of Kant/Schopenhauer philosophy.
Most people who are atheist or agnostic cannot reference ANYTHING specific in the Bible past the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Those are the chapters with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah's Ark, etc. They constantly refer to stories from these chapters as "evidence" of the implausibility of Judeo-Christian faith.
Those stories were not written to be taken literally. They were written for an audience that needed to understand their relationship with God. In that regard, the stories are accurate. It is not meant to be a scientific explanation of the beginning of the world.
Do you refer to the phone book for a good recipe? Of course not. That doesn't mean the phone book is not accurate. It means you are looking in the wrong book.
Once you get past Chapter 11 of the first book of the Bible, you may
Im in the religion of "I don't know" and unless you were there when this planet was formed you don't know either.
Beliefs should be justified. There is no evidence that a God exists, therefore the belief in it is unjustified. Atheism is the default belief, as it makes no claims.
There is plenty of evidence that God exists. Have you read Thomas Aquinas? Bonaventure? Bacon?
Howe about Georges LeMaitre? He was the guy who proposed the Big Bang theory, which has recently been accepted as all but conclusive as the source of the universe. LeMaitre was also a priest.
People making claims that God exists is not evidence. In order to be valid, claims need to be testable and verifiable. The religious beliefs of scientists have no bearing on the intellectual basis of their discoveries, as the discoveries themselves are not theist.
Again, read Aquinas. He doesn't simply make claims and straw man arguments. He has a pretty ingenious path to leading you to God...logically and rationally.
There is a reason why his theology has been the underpinning of Christian thought for over 700 years. It holds up.
For you to simply dismiss the evidence I propose tells me you are unfamiliar with it.
Would your belief in your religion happen to be a belief that you believe to be true or false?.
I sprang from various christian denominations but I never was devout to any of them because they were too controlling. I remember Baptist churches were fun when I was little but the problem was I got older grew a brain and figured out they are all hosers for Your money. I think I would classify Myself as a Deist - One who believes We are all apart of a One energy consciousness that is apart of an even Greater energy that is God.
Census data from your part of the world would be a better source for establishing the prevalence of atheism vs. theism.
I suppose I'm an atheist. I think about religion sometimes, but I couldn't put faith in God while retaining honesty. In an evidence-based logical framework I think atheism is better supported, and I couldn't reject that legitimacy just for the comfort of religion.
That is a reflection of your lopsided introduction to faith. Belief in God is not at ALL putting reason aside. Quite the opposite. Do a Google search on "Fides et Ratio". It is a document written by John Paul II on that very topic.
True Christian theology teaches that the 5 senses were given to us by God precisely for understanding the world we are in. We are supposed to embrace science and progress, but not to put our FAITH in them. The mistake made by proponents of scientism (the belief that all things are explicable through science) is that there are no things to have faith in because it is illogical. If you meet someone for lunch, you still show up, even though you have no scientific evidence they will do the same. You drive through green lights, even though you can't be sure opposing traffic will stop at the red. Those are acts of faith.
Further, I think you would be shocked to find that roughly 25% of the major scientific and technological discoveries of the modern age were made by people of strong Christian faith. Atheists have not made nearly the amount of scientific contributions as Christians.
I know many intelligent and scientifically-minded religious people, and it definitely doesn't surprise me that 25% of discoveries were made by self-identified Christian people. On the contrary, if you told me it was more I would have believed you.
I don't have time to read the entirety of Fides et Ratio, but I'll try and skim it honestly before I write this. I can say is that I agree faith in God is not incompatible with some semblance of reason, but that reason must then operate within a framework of faith which I cannot is valid in the first place.
More importantly, I think Fides et Ratio undersells the value of reason. Reason is valuable precisely because it is separate from the artificial optimism or pessimism of faith. Artificial optimism is not a strength that faith brings to the scientific or philosophical world. A key challenge of science is to extract natural optimism from the natural world.
I do sympathise with what seems from my skimming ot be the underpinning feeling of Fides et Ratio; self-identified "rationalists" often don't display a great deal of care or empathy or interest in the emotional welfare of people. What I would say is that faith is not the best antidote to that flaw. Those "rationalists" are not true inquiring minds because they look at the world reductively and do not understand human emotion properly. They use the label of "rationalism" as an identity, but they don't represent core rationalist thought. True, pragmatic rationalism by definition *must* take account of the instability of human emotion. The best antidote isn't an injection of faith into science, it's a change in the culture of how we think about rationalism.