I’m an agnostic. I’m a weak agnostic if you want deeper labels. A strong agnostic definitely believes you can’t prove that a god exists or that you can’t have a relationship with an existent god. A weak agnostic doesn’t necessarily think you can prove anything about god one way or the other, but isn’t so sure of that as to be dogmatic in their skepticism. The same skepticism that makes me doubt the existence of a god is the same that makes me doubt I know enough to definitively conclude that there isn’t a god.
One thing that doesn’t seem to get brought up often about religious beliefs is that there’s a difference between belief and practice.
I’m an agnostic by belief but an atheist by practice, in that I don’t act in my life as if a god exists.
There are plenty of nominal “theists” who will answer a survey in the affirmative about their belief in a deity, but they may practice atheism by not being a part of a religious organization, not going to church, never really talking about it, etc.
This is where all the surveys about how many people “believe” in a god in America are deceptive. There are plenty of people who “believe” but don’t practice and vote as if they’re atheists, but it makes practicing theists feel like they’re in the majority because of the stated belief.
And what are the labels for yourself in terms of Santa Claus? Atheist? Or weak agnostic? If the former, how exactly have you come to the definitive conclusion that he doesn’t exist?
Again, that lack of disproof also applies to leprechauns and the Great Pumpkin. A lack of disproof for an improbable no-evidence claim is insufficient reason for being “agnostic” about it.
I mean, I suppose I’m for helping people if they’re having a spiritual crisis, but it comes off as recruiting with a soft-line, marketable approach.
people who are religious very often cannot understand that atheism is just opting out of the god culture [i.e. collecting stamps is a hobby. not-collecting stamps is not a hobby.] I frequently see these folks online very seriously saying that atheism is just another religion. we get together and read Hitchens or something.
I guess it’s a Catch-22; the misinterpretation by many theists means that any atheist organization will be subverted by a common perception that it is something which it fundamentally is not.
ultimately I find the ad irksome, but not through any real fault of the advertisers. at least it isn’t edgy propaganda like Boundegar outlined earlier:
I guess I don’t understand the need to organize and persuade anyone. “we” don’t need converts, there’s nothing to “convert” to. there’s not even a “we.” The only way organizing atheists makes sense, to me, is politically; to beat back non-secular lawmaking.
Perhaps my perspective as a cradle atheist is different than one who made a choice to reject their upbringing?
I, myself, eagerly await my weekly marching orders from Pope Dawkins.
Also, I’m an atheist because I hate god. And because I just want to commit sin without consequence.
/s
I think many Christians literally can’t imagine not believing in god or not going to church and project their beliefs onto atheists, hence why so many Christians think atheists believe in god but reject Him out of hate and hedonism rather than merely lacking a belief in any god, let alone the Christian god specifically.
I know what you mean. If there were a word that meant “one who doesn’t watch football,” I wouldn’t use that to describe myself, even if it is perfectly accurate. I’ve always thought of the word “atheist” as a religious person’s word to describe my not believing in their god.
In fact, I would say one of the good things about the ‘right’ kind of community is that an introvert feels at ease that they can just be, not pressured into interacting if they don’t want.
This is where the practice vs belief comes in. I have reason to believe that the Great Pumpkin doesn’t exist because it’s not been purported by others to exist, having been originated in a fictional franchise. At least leprechauns and Santa Claus are older beliefs, but that doesn’t speak at all to an increased probability of truth. Santa Claus was theoretically based on a living person at least.
But ultimately, they could exist and I may never know if they do or do not exist, but I choose to practice a disbelief in their existence because it doesn’t matter if I know that they exist or not since they won’t affect my life unless they do exist and that still won’t matter unless I actually find out that they do exist.
Exactly. I am a member of a group (meeting for a different reason), and we happen to be atheists, except for one woman (who has since moved away). Someone criticized fundamentalists and the woman objected, complaining that she was always getting that at SF conventions. We apologized. Later it occurred to me that I should have said something like “well, at least you know how I feel all the time.” It would have been hyperbole, but the point is that religion is SO prevalent in our culture that it’s nice to have a group where we can relax and talk about concerns like the scary infusion of religion in politics.
While I’m not a regular goer the Unitarian Church here in Nashville, TN seems to offer a lot of what you’re describing, especially social networking and a space to meet. And they have some sort of Sunday service that even my most adamantly atheist friends (including a card-carrying member of the Communist Party) attend, but, as far as I know, there’s not a lot of griping.
But do you similarly think of yourself as agnostic about gravity? I mean, odds are pretty good in our lifetime there will be a breakthrough in our understanding of gravity that makes current understanding of gravity (which there isn’t much) seem silly. It won’t matter because on the scale of space, time and mass you are used to dealing with you’ll continue to be attracted to other masses and hence fall if unsupported.
It feels like just writing off the word “knowledge” completely. Why not use an epistemology that recognizes that truth and knowledge are imperfect things that change over time and then you can talk about knowing that the sun will come up tomorrow and that there isn’t a monster under your bed.
Nope. Santa is the Christianization of Odin (or Woden to the Germanic tribes and others), the gift bringer from the north. The stockings you leave by the fireplace are supposed to be filled with carrots, straw, or sugar for Odin’s flying horse Sleipnir to eat.
The connection between today’s Santa and the Saint Nicholas of Catholicism is tenuous at best
Again, the same applies to belief in god(s). If there was ever an “age of miracles”, it’s long over.
What an excellent thread. Some great comments here (and not just the funny ones!).
@Carlmud, @jsroberts, my spouse enjoys going to the local Unitarian Universalist church because she was brought up with a certain amount of ritual and community in her life, and as a person who is both introverted and shy she doesn’t want anything to do with evangelicals, affirmation of dogma, or loud, demonstrative faith, and she doesn’t want to found her own organization either. She wants to go to a beautiful room and quietly knit while someone else speaks about being nice to other people, full stop. The ritual is comforting to her.
Putting on my theologian hat for a minute, there are several kinds of atheism, and some of them are compatible with agnosticism, and others aren’t. The insufferable evangelical atheists who insist that they absolutely know that there isn’t any god and that they themselves are the final arbiters of what god is defined to be and you’re evil and stupid if you disagree are very very different from the kind of atheists who are also agnostic. Thankfully, despite their very loud voices, the aggressively obnoxious kind of atheist is really quite rare. Atheists are less than 5% of the US population, for example, and the majority of those are quite willing to let anyone else believe whatever they works for them - they’ll only vocally object to the crimes of religious people or of specific religious organizations. Unfortunately, there is no accepted taxonomy of atheism. I use a different one than @CarlMud, for example, although I understand his quite easily. There are many more.
One of my favorite things about the local UU church is that it has really cool atheists. They have no issues with my pantheism, although they might roll their eyes or smile tolerantly at me if I use overtly theistic language. If you go to the UU fellowship at the University, it can be rather like the Alabama “free though association” @Supercrisp described; more focused on the damage people have suffered from religion than anything else. God forbid you use words like “god”, or say “prayer” instead of “meditation” - somebody will instantly object, at great length.
@Daneel, am I a gnostic theist if I can literally prove my God exists, and contains all knowledge and all power? Are pantheists even on that chart?
I live as if the sun will rise the next morning and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t. I can’t research everything myself and other humans are biased, imperfect, and unreliable, and it seems possible that humans can’t know a capital-T truth, so I won’t say I know anything I’ve been told because the person who told me could be wrong or lying or only knows part of it.
But it doesn’t matter if I know or don’t know anything for my life practices. I operate as if some things are true and will do so until they prove otherwise. But on a philosophical level, I can’t say that I know anything or that I don’t know anything because I don’t know that I know enough to come to any definitive conclusion, only a “good enough for me” practice.
In practice, it might as well be the same thing as belief in or knowledge of some things even if it isn’t technically the same.
I went to ISU, the names of UW-M buildings mean nothing to me.
