i think its more the world over and is to do with education

I'm a Gilanist, a religion based in football (soccer), women (called "blessings" if they're hot), and men's heterosexuality.

@alamothe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion

I do question the validity of some of their figures but thats irrelevant really.

to be honest I think atheism/agnosticism is a result of access to a wide array of knowledge and a sort of enlightenment.

I'm sure many will staunchly disagree, and I'm not interested in getting into an argument because it will solve nothing, this is just one mans opinion

AKA I agree with trim101

chalk up another pastafarian! *yum!!

Sent from: trim101 (2 ) Sent: 03:54 PM
i think its more the world over and is to do with education
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And all blacks rape, lie and are immoral? The answer to both is no they're just generalisations and/or argumentum ad populum. I put the rise of atheism down to cynicism and the fairweathers who just go along with the times no matter what the times ARE. No offence to anyone but to quote Sicarius "This is just one man's opinion".

Unitarian.

its more than one mans oppinion mate, cynicism-lol try knowledge mate how can you believe in a big fairy tale which has no fact in it at all?

How can you be so crass as to dismiss anything beyond our physical existence out of hand? It must be depressing being an atheist.

it's definitely unpractical in my opinion. by the way, i don't think science is saying anything about god, only about natural laws. in modern times, i don't see a problem with being educated and being religious.

in fact, i firmly believe that science will be able to prove the existance of god in some 1000 years. today's science is very primitive to say anything about it

im not dismiss anything beyond our physical existence am i?im dismissing a big old fairy tale that for some reason some deluded people take for granted, i do believe there is something greater than us but im not going to believe the absolute unfactual rubbish in a book

but being an atheist means explicitly believing that there is no god? i may be wrong, i don't know much about atheism

yes dr Oct, Fritjof Capra, thats a good read for anyone interested in physics and spirituality.
i meant lapsed mainly coz i felt sorry for all the worlds religion that have so many "lapsed" members, didnt want you guys to feel left out.
ok group hug time.
but also i think when i was in my teens i was very atheist now i am trending (bloody election fever is taking over my vocabulary!) to be more agnostic. I generally agree with dr Oct, there are many paths to enlightenment. for some people that requires old books and fiery thunderbolts, others meditation and for others science and humanist rationality.

the one thing that really annoys me is when people assume their way to be the ONLY way.

I was wondering when this was going to start...

If it's ever proven there is a god, then I'll believe it. Until then, there are an infinite number of things outside the realm of our knowledge and understanding, and there's no use in me speculating and putting my faith behind one of them, let alone shaping my lifestyle around what these physically intangible beings supposedly want from me.

I don't think I could believe in the Judeo-Christian god if I were to put my faith in any god. I can't imagine a divine invigilator, and it's just as unlikely as any other god imagined or that could be conceived. All I can imagine is a possible creator god now outside the realm of physical influence in our universe, so the extent of my religiosity is limited to deism at a maximum. But at that point, there's no use muddling around with the question since it has no bearing on my life, it's mere speculation. It's not depressing to be an atheist, it's my normal state of existence, and for many others it's liberating.

@alamothe i never said i was an atheist that was invictus assuming things

I used to consider myself an agnostic, except I realized that if I was "atheist" toward other supernatural ideas, such as aliens and unicorns, than I was atheist toward any of the God's put forward by religions, past and present.

To alamothe: The technical definition of Atheism derives from 'a' the prefix meaning 'not', or 'without' and 'theo' meaning 'god'.

Thus, a common definition is that an Atheist explicitly believes there is no God, or that they feel no attachment to God. This is contrasted with non-commitals and Agnostics. Agnostic coming from 'a' once again, and 'gnosis', meaning spiritual knowledge.

There is of course, a broad variety of interpretations as to what exactly an Atheist is. Some would say that rejecting the reality of a deity does not mean that one doesn't leave open the possibility of existence beyond our world.

This approach closely affiliates atheism as similar to Agnosticism, in that it rejects absolute acceptance of gods or a god.

The short answer is 'usually yes'.

I am an atheist in that I have an absence of a belief in God. I don't say that there is definitely no God as it is impossible to prove a universal negative.

> "physics and spirituality."
I haven't read the book but this phrase sets off alarm bells, physics and spirituality have nothing to do with each other

Most humanists are atheists. If there is any doubt about the matter one can describe oneself as a secular humanist. I used to describe myself as atheist, which is still true, but prefer to describe myself as humanist, as it is more specific and more positive. The term atheist describes what you don't believe in. Humanism describes what you do believe in.
An enormous proportion of people I admire are or were humanists.

I am a theistic humanist. Do something about it. Lol.

And Kestas, the two may or may not be interrelated. What causes gravity to pull? A spirit, or an unseen force? What's the difference?

I completely agree with kestas. People rejoice when they find a book that unites science with spirituality but I always find that either it's a load of pseudoscientific garbage or it's the dressing up of simple coincidence.

Eg. "What the %$#^ do we know?", a documentary I stumbled across that supposedly won lots of awards for being thought provoking and whatnot. It started well enough, with the classic epistemological turn and a general explanation of quantum mechanics, but suddenly it turns horribly wrong as it morphs into a slew of pseudoscience and logical fallacy. It suddenly went from the idea that matter is mostly empty space to the conclusion that matter is actually thought and idea. Then it took the idea of an observer with regards to particle-wave duality and the uncertainty principle and decided to interpret it as meaning that humans have some sort of special observer within them representing our eternal souls. Then it amalgamated the two and concluded that our thoughts shape the world and we can change the world by thinking positively, citing the fact that apparently thousands of people meditating in New York dropped crime rates by 25%...

All in all, a horrifying experience for me. I had to stop about 40 minutes in because the inaccuracies were causing me mental pains, and I was outraged that people would actually buy that crap because they have heavily edited interviews of a single credible physicist and a ton of interviews with largely less credible sources.

"And Kestas, the two may or may not be interrelated. What causes gravity to pull? A spirit, or an unseen force? What's the difference?"

Well it's certainly not an unseen force, since gravity is the actual force itself and it is very readily apparent. It's root cause is being investigated by scientists, and many hope that the Higgs-Boson, if revealed to us by CERN, will explain the nature of gravity. However, calling it a spirit and using that to somehow give oneself some sort of spiritual satisfaction demeans the scientific method and process and the actual mechanism by which gravity exists.

ooops kestas,chrisp maybe i didnt mean `spirituality` in the way you are thinking. i didnt mean it to have any connection to atlantas,crystals or any of that new age nonsence. in a way physics is the ultimate understanding of religion. i dont mean to say that religion can explain science but science can explain religion. im have way through a daniel dennet book right now - breaking the spell. a scientific look at religion and the effect it can have on our brains.

> A spirit, or an unseen force? What's the difference?
As chrispminis says that depends how you define "spirit". If you measure spirit in newtons and it is equivalent to change in momentum with respect to time then there's no difference at all. If a spirit is something you see a point in worshipping and think it listens to prayers etc there's a pretty big difference
You can define words however you like but it's not helpful to rename something mythical and call it science, or expand the meaning of religion and make science a religion by definition

sean; glad to hear that, phew :-)

(Before someone pedantic points this out; gravity isn't actually a force :-P)

Thucydides, my view is that it is extremely difficult to be both a theist and a humanist. You have demanded help in resolving your contradictory nature. How much are you willing to pay for this help?