Any Atheist And/or Agnostic Rt's?

That's what I stated in my initial post...

The complexity human minds seems to exhibit, suggests to me that there are qualities of approach to life that a human which are present for us, which are not so for other animals. I think I'm treading on shaky grounding to pretend to know what any other animals think like, however from what I can tell, some animals (such as domesticated animals) seem to possess similar type of qualities as humans than others, which we as humans can more easily recognize in some animals than others and thus I'd argue is one of the reasons why we tend to form alliances with such animals. (I.E. Pets)

I think these qualities of admiration and alliance can be overridden by biological imperatives however, for instance hunger or living space. So a pet may potentially become food in extreme instances but in Western Civilization, a much more common practice is to spay or neuter pets and therefore preventing the competition for living space, as well as human specific motives such as being able to still afford the pet.

So I do see an existential motive in a lot of our practices towards life being basically informed by our biology.

 

I think we are each our OWN god. I know that sounds kinda LaVeyan, but we each control our 'destiny", and we make our decisions based on our own sense of morality, or lack thereof. Sure, there are a lot of things in life that we can't control, but we can control what we do about those things.

 

It's awesome to have friends and/or family who accept your beliefs, isn't it? Two of my closest friends, whom I consider to be my brother and sister, are VERY christian. They don't judge me and I don't judge them. The three of us know that the only thing that matters is that we treat people the way they deserve to be treated and strive to be the very best "you" you can be.

And yeah.........fuck that southern baptist bullshit. The last time I was homeless, I was staying at a baptist mission, and they FORCED all of us to go to a southern baptist church every single night, which is wrong, in and of itself. The dude that operated the mission was so judgmental that he didn't like one of the guys staying at the mission just because his name was Nebuchadnezzar(a biblical king who wasn't a very nice guy, to put it mildly). I hate people like that. I mean, the dude couldn't help what his parents names him. I was friends with Nebuchadnezzar, so it hurt me to see him judged because of something he has no control over. He was also gay and he tried to come on to me one time but, of course, I refused because I don't swing that way. But the point is, everynight, Nebuchadnezzar had to go to that fuckin church and listen to the preacher talk about homosexuality being an abomination. I looked over at Nebuchadnezzar one time, when the preacher was talking about homosexuality, and Nebuchadnezzar had tears in his eyes. He can't control who he's attracted to, just like he had no control over the name his parents gave him. Sad shit. It almost makes me wanna cry to think about how it made him feel to be forced to sit there and listen to that, because I'm sure it was torturing him inside. Just another example of religion doing more harm that good.

 

I am influenced heavily in old Saxon, old Norse and some variety of European paganism. (once you read it all it tends to blend together)
I don't necessarily worship the earth as such, more the deities that make up the characteristics of myself. You see, I'm not certain there are true life gods or not, I am open to suggestion but a higher being offering divine salvation is not something I'm really interested in at all. In this day and age, there are many faceless faces of people who aren't even sure of themselves or who they really are, I use mythology (which I believe to hold certain key facts about our ancestors, history etc) to unlock my culture.. myself.
The folks who've read my stuff before will already know I do not support Christianity, Islam etc. based solely on the fact that it's a foreign religion. I am not going to learn about myself by following something so alien to my culture. My culture has a very beautiful, colorful and harsh "religion". I will use Norse examples as they are more openly commonly known.

One thing I do not like about Christianity and other organised religions is it teaches you who to be, not who you are. I don't need rules, regulations, doctrines, commandments to live my life the way I intend to, it's ludicrous to live like this, we live like this through our governments, why would we then confine the rest of our freedom to a religion with another set of rules?
Paganism to me doesn't have rules to follow it only offers suggested guidelines to help you on your chosen path. Each chosen path is uniquely different. Folks who praise Thor will no doubt have a different agenda to the folks who praise Oden. Those who praise Frigg most likely have different agendas to those who praise Freyja. And so on, so on, so on.. many gods etc.

In a quick summary of the more notable gods we find their characteristics to be extremely life like to the characteristics we all share today. Remember, no Norse god ever acknowledged themselves to be anything higher than what they were and they were mortal, The Norse are the only Gods that were ever killed off until there was nothing left, their well known destiny.

Thor: Strength, warfare
Oden: Wisdom magick
Tyr: Courage, strategy
Vali: Revenge
Loki: Trickster, mischief, lies
Frigg: Goddess of marriage and motherhood
Freyja: Goddess of love, fertility and battle
Njord: Wind, sea, wealth

and there are countless more but these are well known. Now their attributes are all characteristics of everyone of us. Every single on of them, I believe, I am a product of. I identify with each and every one, I understand through the tales and poems who they were, which helps me understand who I am. They may not be physical beings living in halls up high, they may just be apart of our blood.. they're in here -points to heart- I've not made my mind up yet and I don't really need to. They don't need to be flesh and blood gods for me to believe. My ancestors believed, they wrote the tales and they shared the knowledge. I personally find it shameful that so many people in this world flock to these foreign religions when something more personal and culturally significant is just there waiting to be acknowledged.

 

Thanks for the response and, especially, thanks for taking the time to go into so much detail. That was an interesting read, imo.

 

this would describe the christian/islamic/judaic vision of a god. many other beliefs have a more reasonable and sensible view of the non-physical.

 

I think "god" most likely cares a lot less about religion than many would care to believe.

 

Something which can reproduce itself living in a self sustainable environment..

Sounds pretty fucking perfect to me.


spooky

 

Seeings how we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a supreme being with 100% accuracy I usually stay clear of these discussions.

 

idk but i was cracking some nuts the other day and didn't have the proper implement to do it and found it to be somewhat difficult. it's quite obvious to me that the reason for the difficulty is to protect the seed, so that hopefully it cannot be eaten and can instead grow another plant just like the one that made the seed.

some plants produce poisonous fruit. it does not appear to me that the purpose of plants is to provide us with a convenient food source. different plants have adapted various means of preventing this including thorns, toxicity, or straight up physical toughness.

of course many plants do produce delicious fruit but why do we require food in the first place and have to destroy something else for it?

 

My random thought as an agnostic theist (not religious) is hating on religion in general makes one just another hater and also makes one sound like a fanatic. I mean, has the average antitheist took notice of every religion? Most likely not. Why dismiss every religion as bad or worthy to hate on? Why only focus on the bad aspects of religion (probably because they watched some documentaries with a certain perspective )
I am sincerely interested and fascinated by religions (mostly from a historical and cultural perspective but definitely also for the spiritual and philosophical aspects) and find that it has a lot to offer, even (or maybe even especially) for a-religious people that don't feel restrained. After all, when you are not a follower you can do yourself a favor and not limit yourself to one religion. Well, I have to correct myself already there because it is a stereotype that a follower of a religion is not interested to learn from other religions at all. It may be true often but far from always. I see a ot of atheists though that seem overly rigid and closeminded. They have made up their mind about all religions and every aspect of a religion without even studying it!
I also think haters are generally focussing too much on the bad aspects of religions and dismissing everything else. This can be understandable but to me seems just as hopeless and a biased way to look at things as dismissing any infidel, atheist or areligious person as immoral or say they're condemned to hell etc.

 

I was responding to the notion that 'God is life.' Life kills and consumes itself, that's a simple fact of life, regardless of faith.



I find this article about the Pope's comments interesting and somewhat relevant since evolution and The Big bang is often pitted against the idea of there being a God.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-declares-evolution-and-big-bang-theory-are-right-and-god-isnt-a-magician-with-a-magic-wand-9822514.html

 

Well, there is also the theory that the big bang here was a result of two other universes, that we do not see on this plane, bumping into each other....
If just this universe, then thngs are kind of flat, just like the world was thought to be once upon a time.

 

My exact point always that this world is not perfect......
We can make things to eat maybe without killing anthing....but even flour.....I am no expert in flour making process and what it takes to get it......

picking berries and fruit off of trees seems harmless.....

 

TNS - I've noticed that threads of this kind where theism vs. atheism is discussed, often seem to provoke this same accusation, that if you criticize religion, you 'hate religious people'

That is clearly BS, but I think at least in part it comes from the causes you describe - people who don't choose their religion or belief system but are conditioned with it during childhood. In my view, this means they have more emotion invested in their beliefs than reason. If you step on someone's emotional sensitive spot, accusations that you hate them or would even persecute them are quite common.

I also think that holding onto irrational beliefs creates an internal conflict in people. It's rare you get much sense out of those who are in such a state.

 

that's basically sensible. there are fairly even odds of most things we can imagine existing somewhere. the likelihood of what people pretend to know about them, is considerably less.

 

I am thinking now that I may try a diet that is only things I can pick off of a tree or bush without killing anything....as fruit and berries just rot off anyway, so in my mind, they are offerings.............that would be berries, fruits, nuts.... and see how I feel......for about a week. It will be an experiment.

 

I agree that hate or fanaticism on either side is very counter productive. It just leads to a kind of polarization and entrenchment. The more atheists rail against religion (often with only a limited knowledge of one kind of religion) the more entrenched and even irrational the religionists become. Of course, I'm generalizing here, and not all theists or atheists are like that.

People should be open to look into different things, whether that's religions, science, philosophy or whatever. Part of the trouble with a lot of traditional religions is that they more or less discourage looking anywhere outside their accepted scriptures, dogmas etc.
As you pointed out, there are exceptions, but they're few and far between.

When atheists become militant, they seem to mirror the religious nuts in their dogmatic approach and closed mindedness. I don't mean by this that atheists should begin to see much of any value in scriptures, but they could admit that despite much research, we can't say conclusively that consciousness is generated by the brain. To do so is to go beyond the bounds of what is scientifically legitimate, and move into a grey area of pure prejudice and dogma.

 

Cannot eat nuts now in this experiment, now that I am thinking about it. I am eating something that would potentially drop off and grow another nut tree......
so what is protein that is not killing something or the potential of something else?

 

Milk products? You are only harvesting milk from an animal in this case.