Americans don't want an atheist president

Does the Good Book have anything to say about nationalized healthcare? The situation in Iran? The national debt?

Personally I'd rather vote for a candidate based on his opinions on the actual issues facing the nation, rather than his opinion on things metaphysical.

I didn't mean ONLY religious beliefs, I meant beliefs in general, however religious beliefs DO play a huge role for a lot of American citizens.

The more you can agree on with the candidate the more likely you'll vote for them.

I didn't mean ONLY religious beliefs, I meant beliefs in general, however religious beliefs DO play a huge role for a lot of American citizens.

The more you can agree on with the candidate the more likely you'll vote for them.

Yah people vote for someone who shares what they think is right for the country, but I feel it's unfortunate that people vote because they share religious beliefs since religious beliefs won't solve today's problems.

Quote me where I claimed that you said that religion created moral. What you mean with encouraging it? Same as not doing anything for it, right? My point still stands. It's not like people were killing eachother mindlessly and when the Bible was suddenly written and got popular people somehow became better persons.

It's really hard because the post is completely f`ucked up grammatically, though, I'm not as petty as you to actually use that as any type of point in my argument.

[INDENT]If Bible would have anything to do with morals then how come other religions have morals too? Why does the Bible teach about moral? Yah, because the writers already had the moral typical to human beings when writing it. [/INDENT]

From what I gather here you're saying that I'm saying the bible created morality, and if I'm claiming that how do other religions reflect the same standards. So no your actual point doesn't stand. The Bible=/=religion to begin with, you've always had trouble with this concept. Granted I used the Bible as a specific example but my point was that religion itself encourages kindness and consideration.

Religion did in fact create a unity within our early culture, an origin.

Again, not quite, the "non" in this sense does not mean the person has an opinion on the subject, it simply means they are 100% neutral on it; either they are able to completely block out any and all effects of religion, or it has never even come up in their life so they don't even see it as a subject of debate, it literally does not exist to them.

But, at the point where we're talking about it as a concept the person claiming to be an atheist has obviously encountered the concept of belief in god. The completely untouched "no idea of god" premise is the only other one left by the definition and its not relevant if we're describing atheists in society. Someone who is amoral is not "neutral" they lack morality. To believe in amoralism is to actively deny a role for morality.

Also, you're totally a deist.

Agnostic means just that you're not entirely sure - it's perfectly fine to be an agnostic atheists which believe that there is no God, but don't know if that is true.

That's really stretching things. You don't call a Christian who is having doubts an "agnostic Christian," even though it's obviously possible to have doubts in any system of belief. Furthermore, making the active effort to believe in the absence of higher powers while believing theres no grounding in fact for such an assertion is a little batty. If you're nowhere near sure, why would you tell someone you make an effort to believe the exact opposite of them? pomegranates and giggles? I'm not saying people don't do that, just that when we're talking about what these terms mean to people, and how people should be describing themselves, it's needless complication.

And Christianity "refutes" any other religion too: I don't see Christians saying that Greek mythology or Norse Gods exist.

Christianity disagrees with some tenets of those religions. In the case of polytheistic religions, Christianity says there is one true god. Leaves the door open for false gods, lesser (but still higher than humanity) beings, and everything else that could be "misinterpreted" by other groups throughout the ages. Heck, it's how Christianity spread in large part. "What's that about winter tree festival? Oh, you mean Christmas!" Exploit compatibilities and call other belief structures right to the extent they are similar. The only faith that disagrees philosophically on the most basic point is atheism. Every other faith I can think of has some kind of additional categorical or metaphysical similarity to others.

To quote BSG: "What is the most basic article of faith? This is not all that we are"

The thing to remember here is that the definition of atheism is the belief of lack in a higher power. That doesn't mean they deny that Gods exists, nor does it mean that they hate religion.

It means exactly and specifically that they deny that God exists. If you don't deny(/believe in the absence of) the existence of gods you are not an atheist. Anything else is torturing or outright contradicting the meaning of the word. I'll point you in the direction of bs concepts like "weak" and "strong" atheism, where the belligerent ones who hate religion tried to change the meaning to forcibly absorb agnosticism into their ranks so they could say silly things like a-the-ists (no-god-ists) don't necessarily believe there is no god. These concepts come to us from logic and philosophy so we'd actually be able to describe things accurately and succinctly. To use them to frame an argument dishonestly pisses me off to no end.

A minority of atheists actually bother to discuss religion with other people like religion was a plague - and it sadly seems like you've only met those atheists.

If you believe faithfully that premise A is true, and a large part of the world considers itself part of groups that believe premise A's exact opposite premise Z is true, you'd probably also lament the foolishness etc.

It's understandable, just not as philosophically defensible as they seem to think it is.

Also, you're totally a deist.

I'm not contesting that. I just happen to see the divine entity and the hellish entity to be one and the same, thus worshipping god would be the same as worshipping a satanic being, to me. I'll live life to the fullest now, because in my mind, there is no escaping hell, no matter how good or evil you are in life; I feel that god is a sadistic puppetmaster that enjoys the endless torture of its subjects, and life is merely the first stage of that. I used to believe god was simply dead and everything in life was truly random, giving a good cushion for horrible things to happen, but there is only so far one can take "random" before it becomes "calculated". Hey, hopefully I'm wrong, but it's always smart to expect the worst to happen, that way you will never be surprised when it does.

Regarding politics. Perry falters: Oops

Regarding politics. Perry falters: Oops

That's actually really embarrassing.

That's really stretching things. You don't call a Christian who is having doubts an "agnostic Christian," even though it's obviously possible to have doubts in any system of belief. Furthermore, making the active effort to believe in the absence of higher powers while believing theres no grounding in fact for such an assertion is a little batty. If you're nowhere near sure, why would you tell someone you make an effort to believe the exact opposite of them? pomegranates and giggles? I'm not saying people don't do that, just that when we're talking about what these terms mean to people, and how people should be describing themselves, it's needless complication.

That's not streching things, it's the definition and how it's used.

Christianity disagrees with some tenets of those religions. In the case of polytheistic religions, Christianity says there is one true god. Leaves the door open for false gods, lesser (but still higher than humanity) beings, and everything else that could be "misinterpreted" by other groups throughout the ages. Heck, it's how Christianity spread in large part. "What's that about winter tree festival? Oh, you mean Christmas!" Exploit compatibilities and call other belief structures right to the extent they are similar. The only faith that disagrees philosophically on the most basic point is atheism. Every other faith I can think of has some kind of additional categorical or metaphysical similarity to others.

Whether or not Christianity completely or partially refutes all other religions isn't really relevant here - the point is that more or less all religions is incompatible with some other religion, and therefore you don't believe in that other religion.

It means exactly and specifically that they deny that God exists. If you don't deny(/believe in the absence of) the existence of gods you are not an atheist. Anything else is torturing or outright contradicting the meaning of the word. I'll point you in the direction of bs concepts like "weak" and "strong" atheism, where the belligerent ones who hate religion tried to change the meaning to forcibly absorb agnosticism into their ranks so they could say silly things like a-the-ists (no-god-ists) don't necessarily believe there is no god. These concepts come to us from logic and philosophy so we'd actually be able to describe things accurately and succinctly. To use them to frame an argument dishonestly pisses me off to no end.

No, it just means you don't believe in any god(s). You don't deny that gods exist, you just don't believe that: Atheism is an absence of belief that any gods exist. It's a definition, it's not really anything to discuss.

If you believe faithfully that premise A is true, and a large part of the world considers itself part of groups that believe premise A's exact opposite premise Z is true, you'd probably also lament the foolishness etc.

It's understandable, just not as philosophically defensible as they seem to think it is.

It's completely reasonable to not discuss it, because people could be bullied, teased, lose jobs, get thrown out from home, and so forth because of their beliefs. They may also understand that discussing this to people who believe otherwise won't have any effect because they've tried it earlier, or they just simply don't have time to discuss it.

Regarding politics. Perry falters: Oops

just have faith that someone else can remember what you're gonna do

makes you a better president, you can focus on connecting with the people instead of talking about things that bore everyone.

That's not streching things, it's the definition and how it's used.

Read the very beginning of that wiki for the definition. Disregard the rest, at least as far as defining terms is concerned. Everything mentioned on the page actually discussing "agnostic atheism" is straight from Dawkins or the flying spaghetti monster. There are more than enough counterarguments for both of those straw men, the former personified and the latter figuratively. As I said, I know atheists want to claim agnosticism as a philosophical defense, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. There is no meaningful distinction between the definition of an atheist and what you call an atheist agnostic. A belief (which is unsupported by its very definition) that there is no god, tied to agnosticism, is somewhere between a logical contradiction and meaningless. To be agnostic, one cannot believe that they know whether there is a god. They cease to be agnostic if they come to that knowledge. Doubts are not the same as agnosticism. There's a difference between a lack of belief in presence and a belief in absence.

The way many people talk about this can be really misleading, people act as if matters of belief are completely separate from matters of knowledge. What you know in many aspects defines what you believe.

Whether or not Christianity completely or partially refutes all other religions isn't really relevant here - the point is that more or less all religions is incompatible with some other religion, and therefore you don't believe in that other religion.

It's exactly the point. The extent to which Christianity differs from any other faith is less than the extent Christianity differs from atheism. That matters when you're talking about why nearly a majority of people in a majority Christian country don't want an atheist president.

No, it just means you don't believe in any god(s). You don't deny that gods exist, you just don't believe that: Atheism is an absence of belief that any gods exist. It's a definition, it's not really anything to discuss.

There is an important difference between "I don't believe in a god" and "I believe no god exists" that is completely muddled if you define it that way. (the former I'd call null or irreligious and the latter is atheism). The philosophical difference is essentially as large as the gap between "I don't believe in a god" and "I believe god exists."

It's completely reasonable to not discuss it, because people could be bullied, teased, lose jobs, get thrown out from home, and so forth because of their beliefs. They may also understand that discussing this to people who believe otherwise won't have any effect because they've tried it earlier, or they just simply don't have time to discuss it.

All I was saying there is that I don't find it unreasonable to want to discuss your beliefs with people who don't share them, especially if you think someone disagrees with you in such a stark way. For a lot of people it's practically irresistible. I don't "blame" atheists who think religion is a plague, I just want them to be rational and consistent about their beliefs, which is more or less their main attack on religion.

"it gets on my nerves when people start discriminating on people of other religions or the people who don't have one."

"christians hate everyone who isn't a christian, and it seems especially atheists."

Man you're stupid.

I'm a Christian who doesn't hate atheists, I have atheists friends. Except you, I do hate you.

This. I'm Christian and I have atheist friends,

I honestly don't care what religion: I have Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Atheist friends.

I'm a bit tired of discussing definitions - so let's go with yours if that's okay.

It's exactly the point. The extent to which Christianity differs from any other faith is less than the extent Christianity differs from atheism. That matters when you're talking about why nearly a majority of people in a majority Christian country don't want an atheist president.

Ah, got what you meant. True enough, people will vote on the guy with the belief system and personality which they are closest to. Buddhism is probably a safe bet if you're an atheist and want to be a president - as most people can relate to being religious, while the atheists/agnostics can relate to the "no gods"-part of Buddhism.

All I was saying there is that I don't find it unreasonable to want to discuss your beliefs with people who don't share them, especially if you think someone disagrees with you in such a stark way. For a lot of people it's practically irresistible. I don't "blame" atheists who think religion is a plague, I just want them to be rational and consistent about their beliefs, which is more or less their main attack on religion.

Well, it's okay to try and start a conversation with them, but don't force it on them.

Regarding politics. Perry falters: Oops

Stands no chance.

This thread really took a turn from presidental discussion and flamefest to a debate on religious views. How interesting

This thread really took a turn from presidental discussion and flamefest to a debate on religious views. How interesting

If someone has even once visited basil, they would know this.

If someone has even once visited basil, they would know this.

...considering that you went and posted a thread about both topics, topics being preisdent/religion, I think it's your lack of foresight rather than experience with basil.

...considering that you went and posted a thread about both topics, topics being preisdent/religion, I think it's your lack of foresight rather than experience with basil.