The Dink Network

I'm curious as to what you guys believe. Explain what you believe, and why you believe it.
If you're an atheist, why do you disagree with religion?
Have any of you been offended by a religion?

Hrm. I guess I'd have to answer that I find it kind of silly. Though that's not me saying I think someone is silly for being religious. I just personally can't see the benefits of believing in any religious form. I do however find all natures of philosophy interesting. It's quite possibly the only parts of history I can actually enjoy(probably because it's impossible to tell whether or not any aspect is fictitious or not).

Blaise Pascal created a very convincing argument in support of religion though. I believe it's because of his wager that I don't completely throw religion away as nonsense- in fact I often take it very seriously.

I have deep conflictions over religion because I don't find some traditional religion - say christianity - any less ridiculous than something like pastafarian. Now then, since I see each religion on the same level I know that there can only be one that's "true". What I mean by "true" is that whatever it happens to claim ends up being true. There cannot be more than one as they' end up conflicting each other. However this doesn't mean that one religion out that is "true". More likely none of them hit the mark- not even atheism.

On the topic of atheism, I find it just as silly as the rest. Though to be fair it can't really be classified under religion as it's the polar-opposite. Atheism is the anti-religion. I hear atheists claiming to be synonymous with realists, but that's an just empty claim. While there is no evidence to prove the existence of a God, there is just as little evidence to disprove it. This is why when I see some atheist pointlessly arguing about the existence of God with a believer I can't help but to facepalm.

If I had to claim to be a religion, I guess I'd be forced to say agnostic. If you wish to whole-heartidly believe that there is/isn't a God, go for it. I however will believe that one can't know for certain of the existence of God, so it's best to just accept the unknown.

I may not say as much as leprochaun, but I still have an answer.

Polytheist, I believe in the gods as a way to help people in their own way and make sure people get what they deserve because of the gods of evil or good.

Also you seem like Pred, or a government official, wanting to know our religious views.

This all makes perfect sense to me, I'm still trying to get it to make perfect sense to everyone else.
I believe that the entire multiverse that our universe exists is comprised entirely of energy, that the reality we see is merely something our minds currently comprehend due to our very nature being that of infants in the grand scheme of things.
Energy is impossible to destroy, it can only be moved on. When we die, energy is released back into the universe, maybe even the multiverse, where the energy is spread around once more. (This explains the concept of the soul and why people feel like they were/are reincarnated.)
The energy that we leave behind, our bodies, is simply matter that is a condensed form of energy. (You know these as atoms.)
Now, spirits and psychic imprints that re-enact the past, both colloquially referred to as spirits or ghosts, are a bit difficult to explain. I like to think of them as beings of energy, one is fully conscious of themselves and have not been dispersed among the universe, one is simply something like a tape recording.
I believe that magic is real, but not the flashy flim flam that you see in most books. Magic is simply the use of energy to achieve a goal, and the will to achieve that goal. (This is speaking strictly outside of the normal use of energy by our bodies to live, breathe, or move.)
I personally believe that all of animalkind is capable of changing the world around them through indirect means, via energy manipulation, but that we all are either heavily limited of have had our belief in our own abilities have been brought down to the point where we all but remember what we were capable of.

How I got to these thought stems from the shamanic training that my older cousin, Wolfram, has given to me thus far, and my observations of the universe since. I've noticed that when I manipulate my energy and give it will, I can force my own pain away and induce heat within my hands, nothing so grandiose as healing a papercut or causing a small flame, but the effects can be noticed via manipulating thermal energy that is being released (I.e. a candle flame).
I have observed the universe and saw patterns, though some of which I'm still trying to understand, yet I have seen the things that we as Humans do are observable in animals, and vice versa, that when one splits an atom, that the energy is released.
When one weighs the evidence of that with the concept of manipulating energy, one can only wonder at the implications, not only on the individual, but on the entirety of the multiverse.

If you're confused, I'm sorry. That's the best way I can describe this, the leaps in my logic only appear sound when you see how I made them, and often the leaps were purely from meditation into my inner space.

I have not been offended, mainly because being offended by someone else's religious choices is like getting pissed at a Muslim and a Jew for not eating bacon. Just because you like bacon doesn't mean other people like it or want it.

Mmm..... Bacon.

Atheist. I've never seen any evidence to support the existence of a higher power, while the existence of religion (at its most benign) is all too easily explained as a comfort mechanism to cope with the impersonal world out there.

It's not some kind of locked conviction, I'm actually exceedingly interested in things spiritual and supernatural; it's just that all things like that have turned out to be bullshoot/very difficult to take seriously when you look at them critically. Henceforth, I have little reason to believe, and plenty of reason to be skeptical.

Im Non-religous

Even though im technically a atheist I dont call myself one because well couple of reasons
1.The term is VERY RARELY used in Australia I didnt even knew about until I was almost 17!
2.The World "Atheist" sounds like it itself IS A RELIGION which im not.
3.It not quite as clear as the term non-religious.

Deist. Based off of the research, it seems far more logical for there to be a god than for there not to be.

I know I'm opening the can of worms here, but:

Why are you non-religious, Predisher? And please give calm, well written statements, and not a wall of all-caps text stating why you hate things.

This is how internet arguments start.
Naturally,you are free to give your opinion,but you always (inexplicably) end up surprised when you see somebody crapping all over your beliefs.
Go figure.

BTW I'm talking generally here,this is not directed to anyone specifically.

Agnostic.

Seems like the most sensible route. Hedging my bets.

Religion is a clever construct, like drugs. My religion is my own derivation of numerous theories from numerous religions and philosopher, but I'm essentially agnostic - ditto at hedging bets

IT'S HAPPENING

I view myself as an athiest. I do not believe in the existence of God, or some other higher power who created everything. I believe in what science has proven on how the universe, solar systems, and planets formed, and not how some wizard poofed the Earth into existence in a single day. I also hate organized religion, how it brainwashes children to their beliefs, and then tries shoving it down everyone's throat. I accept that people have the right to believe whatever helps them sleep at night.

Science is true whether you believe in it or not.

Science can be heavily biased, and it cannot prove without a shadow of a doubt that something is true. For instance, the big bang theory, when simplified, states that at first there was nothing, then something appeared into something and somehow arranged itself to become the universe that we know today. Many religions have creation stories similar to this. The Big Bang Theory requires just as much a leap of faith as any other creation story.

Science can be heavily biased,

Thats true to a certain extent but no where nearly as biased as religion.

The difference is that science is based on reality. In the case of the Big Bang theory, for instance, redshift, and from redshift, the expansion of the universe. If the universe is expanding now, it makes sense to assume that it was more compact in the past, yes?

When evidence mounts in opposition of a theory, new theories are formulated, and our understanding of how the world works increases. Or if evidence mounts in support of a theory, we can be reasonably sure the theory is at least mostly correct.

I very much doubt we have a good understanding of something so distant and obscure like the early days of the universe with our current amount of information. In 100 or 200 years, the popular theories concerning something like that may well be wildly different.

Does any of that really require a leap of faith, though? I'd say it only requires a leap of faith if you choose to blindly accept the word of some scientist as gospel, without concerning yourself with the background information. The scientist said so, so it must be true / the old book said so, so it must be true. Not a very intelligent approach, that.

The scientist said so, so it must be true / the old book said so, so it must be true. Not a very intelligent approach, that.

And yet, that's the approach most people take. I've seen people take science and turn it into a religion, turn it into who can bullshoot more than the other to get grants and recognition.

We don't know what happened before the big bang. Even if we did, no one knows what happened before that event, whatever it may have been. The current theory is that energy came together before time existed, thus creating the matter needed for a big bang to take place. Those who look down on other people for rejecting the "well it's just always been that way" hypothesis are the reason no one likes a militant believer of anything.

Despite conventional wisdom, there are intelligent people on both sides of any aisle. Pontificating that you're liberated from a "control system" (implying that atheist have never had a control system that has killed millions of people for being different) or that you're on a higher plane of scientific thinking (implying that theist don't have the mental capacity to understand atheism or haven't ever looked into current theories) doesn't truly say anything about you, except that you're yet another person searching for answers.

I've been on the border of atheism and deism for the past several years of my life. I've just recently started to lean deist. A major reason my beliefs have slowly changed is that I've come to realize that atheist don't really know and understand our origin like they claim to. The same can also be said for theist, especially of revealed religions.

Conclusion: No one truly knows and different people come to different conclusions for different reasons.

If you don't have the answers regarding our origin, don't pretend that you do and that people who disagree with you are somehow below your way of thinking.

I am an atheist because it makes me euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing, but because I am enlightened by my own intelligence.

I'd make some snarktastic comment, but it's not needed.

am an atheist because it makes me euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing, but because I am enlightened by my own intelligence.

Me and you think alike.

And also were both Australians

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i died

You guys are missing the key element here, and that's Winnie the Pooh. For you see, Winnie the Pooh was walking on this Earth long before Elvis ever appeared as a hologram.

please see this topic is going to cause a lot of friction...

Can there also be a lot of fractions?

Agnostic atheist (I should point out, you can't just be agnostic. Agnostic means you don't know, and therefor your next line is the position you hold by default. Most people think atheism requires gnosticism, which is patently absurd. I know of no one who claims to know there is no god.)

As to why? Theists have not met their burden of proof. There is not sufficient evidence that there is a god, so I presume there isn't by default. While I can accept those who believe, it disappoints me to see people believe something they can't actually give evidence for. As I have become ever more interested in science and logic, my previously protestant roots have withered, and I have realized just how terrible what I believed truly was. The sentence "You need faith" now burns me to the core. Faith is only good for coming up with hypotheses, not for proving theorems.

Then please explain how Chuck Norris was born then, he is not a natural human man?

Also what is the proof of things like the big bang or other things then, and where is proof the gods didn't do it to trick people?

There's no direct proof of the Big Bang, which is why it's just a theory. But we can tell from the fact that galaxies are moving away from each other that the universe is expanding, so from that we infer that the universe started from something incredibly tiny, and then "exploded" to cause this expansion. Or something like that. As for what caused the Big Bang, there are theories that say that it happened because two universes collided, but there's no way to prove something like that yet.

IMO there is more substance in this than a god went "poof, the universe exists now." But there's no proof for this either.

But there is not proof either, also the theory could just be a misunderstanding or there could be a mistake. Also how are we sure the gods aren't invisible and/or making the galaxy/universe/whatever it is, bigger by a magic power that we can't understand, kind of like magic.

Here's a somewhat interesting article I just found.

Blam bam!

Even if that is true, what about other gods and the other prophets and "sons" of the gods? Plus there still is no proof that he is just speaking complete truth and didn't mess anything up there could of been some real mad-man or genius named Jesus or something else and no-one knows or would think about.

There still is no evidence that gods exist or not or that they are the reason everything science proofs is true or not.

Also am I finally doing good in a discussion without messing it up?

EDIT: Actually, I can't be bothered.

I don't get it.

Here's a somewhat interesting article I just found.

That is interesting. If true, as far as I'm concerned that's a feather on Jez's fedora rather than some kind of blow to Christianity. Religion actually being used to further the cause of peace? =)

Atwill asserts that Christianity did not really begin as a religion, but a sophisticated government project, a kind of propaganda exercise used to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire. "Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century," he explains. "When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome."

The evidence for the Big Bang is the expanding universe and has been given extra credence by the discovery of cosmic background radiation. Furthermore, YOU assert the is a trick, so you must provide evidence to support said claim. As it goes the Big Bang is a relatively solid theory now (Note, theory is the highest form of scientific discovery, unless it is purely mathematical, in which case it is a law. It doesn't mean "We THINK this, but can't prove it", that's a hypothesis.), in comparison to, say, string theory, which, while it holds true, doesn't actually predict anything and so therefor isn't considered science by a lot of people, at least those who understand science.

NOTE: I use, and most other people should too in order to actually have rational conversations, this method for having discussions of a rational manor. I will only say this one more time, but my position and the position of almost all of the atheists in the world is NOT that one or more gods don't exist but that the claim that they do has not be proven and that it is therefor not logical to conclude it is true. We don't need evidence contrary to the claim because we don't necessarily believe, and don't absolutely claim to KNOW, that the contrary is true.

The Gang Bang theory is one of the silliest things I've heard. I studied it a bit, and it doesn't even make any sense on a human-level intelligence. Let alone that any theory humans suggest as the birth of existence, is bound to go wrong, because it's beyond a human being's understanding. Scientists (and people in general) don't even fully know what happened five years ago. How are they supposed to know how everything began? And I will never understand how there can be so many people who actually believe in their theories.

What do I think about the birth of existence, personally? Well, I really don't even wanna think of it that much, cause I'll inevitably be wrong. But if you ask me, I think there's a possibility that existence always was. I know it's not within a human's comprehension to understand that something could've always been. But that doesn't mean it should be ruled out. In any case, it's more likelier than the Big Bang, which humans actually can say couldn't have happened, cause the theory's so faulty.

By the way, has anyone ever thought that maybe existence will just "quit" some day? Has there ever been any talk that maybe existence could just shut down, die or break? You know, it's kind of a scary thought. We've calculated meteor strikes and how long the sun will live (which is also on a bit of shaky grounds, if you ask me) but we know nothing about existence itself. For all we know, existence could just end any second.

5 years ago?

What the hell

I even know what happen 10 years ago.

I was going to say I doubt you know much outside your own life that happened 5 years ago, but in your case, I doubt you even know what happened in your own life during that time.

I do I was in Geraldton at my cousins engagement party.

And what did every single person say at the party? Joking.

Imagine if another universe came and collided with this one, and we even saw it take up the whole sky and everything before we died. Wouldn't that be something?

I guess it would.

So far the only kind of proof of a god being out there is something I remember from a History book.

Supposedly some roman emperor[I think} saw a Cross in the sky and said if won the coming battle then he would turn Christian with his whole country/empire, and he won.

Not completely sure on the details since I think I read it like 4 or something years ago, but if someone can tell me which guy it was, thanks in advance.

To skull, can you actually explain any of the apparent problems with the theory? Because there is a ton of money out there for anyone who can disprove it.

And to DackFight, I don't see how that is, in any way, evidence. For all we know, he may have been a superior tactician, or had a more powerful army, or just have gotten lucky. His conversion was a personal choice, not proof in any way. For the counter argument, what if the opposing army saw the cross as well, and made the same decision. We will never know, but either way, they lost.

Like I said I can't remember the full details, nor do I care that much for them, but it's all the evidence I have on the spot, other then Tal being able to turn water to piss [though I prefer to not use that].

Also how much cheddar are we talking here about the gang bang theory being false, I might try learning more about it then, maybe try to get my friend Dayde to read some books on it too, he loves to read.

May I ask, out of curiosity, why people call it the Gang Bang theory? What does it have to do with sexual deviance?

A similar thread by ThePunisher would've been locked a week ago.

I demand justice.

Perhaps the smartest comment that Godley has ever said.

I actually wonder that myself, its seems like a Pun thread.

Also I have only heard people call it the gang-bang theory here.

I suppose the reason it is still open is no one is being bad about it. People state their opinions and discuss things, but there's no mudslinging. This is how religion threads should be, must they exist at all.

/me slings mud at megadogV2, take that!

I guess you're right, also quite surprising about it since it's so big.

All of you are massive faggots and utter and complete douchebags who should be beheaded in order to please the Dead Dragon Carcass!

#justtryingtostartaflamewar

EY FAGGOTFACE, WHO'RE YOU CALLING A DOUCHEBAG YOU FAT FART?!?!!1

I'll throw you in the outhouse, you illiterate wife beater ... You is uglier than a lard bucket full of armpits.

Get the duck away from my outhouse! I'm eating rice here.

Where did my rice go!?

I'm agnostic but I feel that none of us actually know how it started.

We can theorize all we want but we will never actually truly know. Whether it's 1 god, 28 gods or no god. There are many different religions and that fact alone shows us that things are not as they might seem.

So yeah, the answer is: We don't know. Focus on the now instead of arguing on an impossible-to-answer question.

U cant be agnostic megadog said so.

Indeed, the secondary word is whatever you live your life as if it were true. For instance, I doubt you pray to any particular god, but do you pray at all? The most specific you can get with people who are just "Agnostic" is usually atheist, theist or deist. IIRC, deism is the belief in a kind of metaphorical god, a mind to the universe or what have you.

Id say screw the words atheist and agnotic and just use non-religous.

"Indeed, the secondary word is whatever you live your life as if it were true."

I don't think so.

I am agnostic because I don't believe there is any way we can prove or disprove the existence of a deity, or deities. It does not naturally follow that I must live my life as if one of the opposing views on the existence of a "God" were true.

Agnostic means you admit you don't know, but what you personally believe is true isn't something you can completely remove. You will ultimately live your life as if one of those positions were true. You don't have to hate religions or act as an antitheist (the name commonly used to describe Gnostic Theists), you just have to not believe there is a god personally. That's ALL the word atheist means. Not believing there is a god. It's not even the belief that there is no god. That requires evidence, which as you rightly said, cannot be supplied. It's the neutral position, the "You haven't met your burden of proof, so I must disbelieve your claim" position. I hold the same position for anyone who can prove a god doesn't exist.

To take this another way, do you believe there is any kind of god? Do you consider this possibility before acting? Does the possibility effect your actions in ANY WAY? Because if not, your position is either that you don't believe, but you know it's impossible to know, or you don't care what this god could potentially see you doing (Keeping in mind, a general trend of gods is their dislike of arbitrary things, like eating pork)

EDIT: This video should sum up what I'm trying to say.

What about the Agnostic people in South Park?