Barnard17

Really Neapolitan you'd do a lot better at being a condescending snob if you didn't talk a load of bollocks all the time. Atheism is not an organised religion with a set agenda, the way that atheism personifies is entirely down to the individual itself. And while atheists will tend to wax lyrical in discussions I don't often see them on street corner with placards preaching about how your soul will be eternally damned if you don't believe the same as them.

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Yukon Cornelius

Hope: a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life.

Faith: the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

Religion: a system of human thought.

God: most often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of the universe.

wiki ftw!!!!

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Attempting to find a cure for Stupid...

Neapolitan

I observe the same thing about condescending snobs, they don't talk to everyone. Sometimes I wonder if they use reticence as a sheild to hide their own inadequacies; so they continue to look down don't on other without being found out they are just like everyone else.

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Fruitonica

I'm not sure why anyone would have a problem with it. It seems like a healthy form of spirituality and not at all harmful.

But you yourself said it's intangible, and really - inseparable from your own psyche. Calling it a higher power is a convoluted method of dis-empowering yourself and not really accepting personal responsibility.

Schizotypic

I like your point of it being inseparable from my own psyche. Something people in A.A say is that my higher power will get you drunk, which I think is implying two things; 1) Your point, that a person of my spiritual belief's higher power is their own and will only work for them. 2) That it can't really be any other way.

I think it's better this way, less riff raff. Honestly if I had to share my belief with two other people we would be constantly fighter over the details of what exactly this thing looks like and does, in which scenario I think the entire effect would be not only muted but would be converted into something that would in fact be harmful. Look at all the trouble religion has caused.

As far as it's existence being nullified by the fact that it only has any effect or meaning to me individually is up for debate. Does an idea need to have a desired effect in more then it's creator to exist? What about any effect? Where do we draw the line?

I'd say it is a reasonable argument that my belief in a higher power is an object in and of itself, this I justify by saying it is tangible to the mind and therefor existent. Furthermore, it has respectively aided in triggering signals in my brain (an effect of it's existence, one could even say this is the action of my belief in a higher power) to cause me to be motivated to write this very paragraph. So it is reasonable then to assume my belief in a higher power is not only existent but also indirectly part of creating this completely tangible paragraph. If the above is true then my belief in a higher power has now indirectly effected you, my reader. Clearly it is my opinion that ideas are nouns and are capable to some degree of committing effect much in the same way bacteria do; mindlessly.

If I chose to utilize this effect like one would use bacteria to make a vaccine, then I say that I am in my action philosophically reasonable, scientifically careful, and at the same time spiritually sound. Who knows why people believe what they do, I have a wondering theory that many Christians are acting in opposition to fear and that many atheist are doing the same.

Hilariously I've talked over my belief with many of both parties, and to my guesses they have about the same strong, emotionally based reactions. My humble opinion is against the implication of the above statement, though, in that I believe nobody is truly part of a group of thinking. If they were, then they would agree with each other down to the finest degree possible! I think that is hardly the case.

This brings me to my concluding point on your statement, can any idea tangible to the human mind be truly and fully separable to the mind that spawned it? To me, that question just begs of accepting that my way of thinking cannot be any different then anyone's, even atheist, in validity- however, as I mentioned before, it does have quite a positive effect on my life. =)

Axiomatic Wiki

I'm an Atheist, which is not to say that I deny any possibility that a god exists, a common misconception, and something people often associate with atheists. I really get annoyed when people say things like "I don't believe in god but I don't deny it so I am agnostic and not an atheist", the term Atheist means nothing more than Not a theist, the prefix A meaning not.

Sorry for that slightly random rant, It is just something that has been on my mind a lot lately.

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Meph1986

You're right. An agnostic by definition IS an atheist.

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CAPTAIN CAVEMAN

this is not true

atheist = claims god does not exist
theist = claims god exists
agnostic = claims knowledge of god is not possible
agnostic atheist = claims knowledge of god is not possible & does not believe in god
agnostic theist = claims knowledge of god is not possible & believes in god

Meph1986

I was referring to agnosticism in its most pervasive, yet incorrect, definition (a middle ground between theism and atheism).

I do agree with what you said though.

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Barnard17

Caveman summed it up nicely. Atheos - without god(s). By associating yourself as an atheist you assert that there is no god. By associating yourself as an agnost (in the barest sense) you assert that you do not have sufficient knowledge of a god and therefore reserve judgement. So, I'm afraid to say that the misconception is yours and your rant unfounded.

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