Ed Grubermann: Dimensio: JaaVaa: Aren't atheism and [insert religion] all just as much of an unknown? I never understood the whole 'I absolutely know ______ and you're full of crap' stance held by so many people.
/agnostic seems far more logical
//too much bigotry

How, exactly, is an absence of belief in deities an "unknown"?

And how is refusing to make up your mind "logical"?

Your question is a non-sequitur and does not address my question.

LouDobbsAwaaaay: So Christians are now claiming that they invented talking?
/had Christian door-knockers show up the day after my dad's obit hit the papers
//so I guess they troll newspapers looking for weakened people to exploit
///I'll never forgive them for that

No, if you're an atheist, you're not allowed to have human frailties. You have renounced all human emotions when you turned on God. Because logic or something. You're like Spock.

I used to sit outside on campus and study. Alone, because I was studying. OK, also because I was alone. Anyway, the college Bible kids would ALWAYS stop and try to convert me. Once, it was the same damn girl twice. I was usually polite to them anyway--or just told them to go away, I was studying.

GhostFish: Spazmojack: Ok... I guess if you want to break it down like that. I don't know that most agnostics see it that way, and I also don't think most religious adherents or atheists would also admit to being agnostic. Seems like a pretty impractical way to employ the term.

Well, that's what the terms mean. Or at least that's what they meant, until people bastardized them.

It's like someone asking what your favorite ice-cream flavor is, and you say "white."
Yeah, everyone around you has been saying "white" to mean "vanilla" for as long as you know (because people that say "vanilla" all act like assholes for some reason), but that doesn't mean your usage is technically correct.

I get that. And LouDobbs too. Alright. Let's pretend my statement applies to agnostics who are misunderstanding the term.

dionysusaur: buckler: blackhonda: /also UU
Lots of us UU's here tonight
Represent, yo.

One of my recently-retired-due-to-stroke UU Minister's frequent topics was famous folks who acted UU, but weren't known to be. Lincoln, Gandhi, Jefferson, ...

That's odd...a big part of the new member education classes I took when joining focused on Jefferson as a Unitarian, especially in reference to his vetting the Bible, and his well-known stance on the relationship between religion and state.

radiovox: Babwa Wawa: ZeroCorpse: Degenz: Put your trust in Jeebus, but your ass belongs to me.
[7films.me.uk image 640x360]

You're being obtuse.

What did you call me?

Would you put this in your outgoing mail?


oblig

JaaVaa: /agnostic seems far more logical

"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." - Isaac Asimov, Free Inquiry (Spring 1982)

Atheists can talk?

This changes everything.

I'm an Atheist, and I talk to our hospital chaplain pretty regularly. A lot of them are pretty awesome. Many of ours are female, too, which always leads to interesting conversations on women in the church.

It's nice just to vent your frustrations, anger, and powerlessness in the face of nature and the unchangeable laws of the world we live in, sometimes.

Strongbeerrules: Elmo Jones: [quizilla.teennick.com image 640x426]
Boxes subby's ears

General Steele: "There are no atheists in foxholes!!!"



and that's a damned tragedy

here to help: James F. Campbell: "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." - Isaac Asimov, Free Inquiry (Spring 1982)

That's not logical. It's arrogant, self serving and pretentious.

No, it's the truth. Get used to it.

If you ever had a near death experience you know all other fears vacate your conscience at the moment you believe you are about to die. You might cry for forgiveness from Jesus. Or maybe you'll expire quietly. But the one universal truth is you're going to die.

Death and taxes, nubian. Get used to it.

Spazmojack: GhostFish: Spazmojack: Ok... I guess if you want to break it down like that. I don't know that most agnostics see it that way, and I also don't think most religious adherents or atheists would also admit to being agnostic. Seems like a pretty impractical way to employ the term.

Well, that's what the terms mean. Or at least that's what they meant, until people bastardized them.

It's like someone asking what your favorite ice-cream flavor is, and you say "white."
Yeah, everyone around you has been saying "white" to mean "vanilla" for as long as you know (because people that say "vanilla" all act like assholes for some reason), but that doesn't mean your usage is technically correct.

I get that. And LouDobbs too. Alright. Let's pretend my statement applies to agnostics who are misunderstanding the term.

I've never met an agnostic person that didn't clearly believe that the knowledge of god is unknowable. Have you ever really sat around and talked to any?

Personally I'm an agnostic because I'm not comfortable with making uninformed decisions. I'm perfectly comfortable with admitting that I don't really know the answer.

Now, if you were to ask me to take a guess I would say that I doubt it, but I'll never say I know there isn't.

/actually it kills me that I'm not omniscient.
//oh well, we play the hand

here to help: James F. Campbell: "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." - Isaac Asimov, Free Inquiry (Spring 1982)

That's not logical. It's arrogant, self serving and pretentious.

here to help

With a statement like that, your name doesn't seem to make sense.

here to help: James F. Campbell: "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." - Isaac Asimov, Free Inquiry (Spring 1982)

That's not logical. It's arrogant, self serving and pretentious.

wat

here to help: That's not logical. It's arrogant, self serving and pretentious.

This is... a really good troll.

James F. Campbell: here to help: That's not logical. It's arrogant, self serving and pretentious.

This is... a really good troll.

I think FARK embodies Poe's law well, James.

To be honest, I can't tell if he's actually an idiot, or a true troll. I've been suprised many times in the past.

Larry Mahnken: Chaplains are not missionaries. They're not there to convert you, they're there to comfort you in whatever way they can.

/Atheist

This. I work in hospice. Chaplains (and all hospice workers) are there to support the patient in their culture/belief system, etc. not bring their own agenda. I'm not a chaplain, but I've worked with Xtian, Jewish, Buddhist, Wiccan, Athiest, Unaffiliated, and Muslim patients. I leave my beliefs at the door.

Also, some dying people are a-holes. They did bad things. They are mean. They still deserve support.

BronyMedic: To be honest, I can't tell if he's actually an idiot, or a true troll.

Who's the more foolish: the troll or the idiot who responds to him?

I don't really believe in any deity. But if there's an afterlife I don't want piss off any god there might be.

Therefore vote republican.

When I was stuck in the ortho wing at Wilford Hall at Lackland AFB in the mid-90's with a snapped Tib/Fib they kept pushing chaplains and evangelical nuts on me 2-3 times a day for the full week I was there. At first I was as polite as I could be saying "Sorry, I'm not a believer. I'd like to be left alone." After a week of non-stop harrassment and many episodes of unwanted "laying of hands" and faith-healing prayers I was close to carving a pentagram on my head and hanging a sign around my neck saying "Piss off fundies!"

This was back in the days when the fundies in all the services had full-time proselytizing programs going on while the brass denied or downplayed that any such thing was going on.

Piss off fundies!

/CSB

toejam: This. I work in hospice. Chaplains (and all hospice workers) are there to support the patient in their culture/belief system, etc. not bring their own agenda. I'm not a chaplain, but I've worked with Xtian, Jewish, Buddhist, Wiccan, Athiest, Unaffiliated, and Muslim patients. I leave my beliefs at the door.

Also, some dying people are a-holes. They did bad things. They are mean. They still deserve support.

It's pretty interesting when you compare hospital chaplains with preachers. Hospital Chaplains....they talk. They don't evangelize or try to convert you. They'll discuss scripture and everything if it comes to that in the conversation, but one thing I notice is that they don't even get pushy with the topic of God. They just listen, and try to give comfort.

Hospital Chaplains are amazing people.

James F. Campbell: Who's the more foolish: the troll or the idiot who responds to him?

Uh, how many conversations have you engaged in with GeneralJim?

James F. Campbell: BronyMedic: To be honest, I can't tell if he's actually an idiot, or a true troll.

Who's the more foolish: the troll or the idiot who responds to him?

Or the one who starts a debate about whether they're a troll?
Or the one who questions whether talking about their trollishness is a good idea....wait a sec...

Moral of story: Atheists are willing to talk to other people even if they know they are of different faiths.

Now, if the roles were reversed, the christian would either seethe with hate to repel the filthy unbeliever, or they would exploit the opportunity to proselytize the living sh*t out of them.

Biological Ali: here to help: James F. Campbell: "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." - Isaac Asimov, Free Inquiry (Spring 1982)

That's not logical. It's arrogant, self serving and pretentious.

wat

He seems to be putting a lot of faith in his own scope of reality.

I keed, he essentially says he's intellectually agnostic anyway. As someone said early, agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive.

He believes that the truth is unknowable but his emotions lead him to believe there ultimately isn't a god. Now if he hadn't quantified that his opinion was purely emotion, and instead said it was factual, I would be agreeing with here to help.

In late 2010 I had to have reconstructive surgery on my right shoulder. The morning of my surgery the chaplin came in to cheer me up. I told him that because a dumbass biatch thought she could drive and text at the same time, I ended up with nine broken bones, two broken shoulders and reconstructive surgery. He apologized. I said "Unless you're praying for your god to end that coont's life very soon, not soon on his time line, but soon on the human scale, there is nothing you can do for me." He started say something about god's plan. I cut him off and said "Okay, get this very straight. If I don't survive, your god and I are going to have a nice long talk about his plan and what a bastard he is."

He finally left.

/And yes, Jehova, one day we're going to have that nice little chat you bastard.

J. Frank Parnell: Now that atheism is so trendy in the west i've decided i'm a pantheist.

You believe in pans?

J. Frank Parnell: Now that atheism is so trendy in the west i've decided i'm a pantheist.

/you've probably never heard of it

The gods I believe in are so obscure that even I don't believe in them.

Clearly this proves that everything in the Bible is literally true.

Biological Ali: The gods I believe in are so obscure that even I don't believe in them.

Damnit, shush. No words of the Elder Gods around the unclean.

I have had more than one atheist in my life thank me for a comforting word or prayer during trying times. Not on Fark though.

I'm an agnostic/athiest and I talk to the chaplin all the time at at the hospital I work at.

Spazmojack: Dimensio: JaaVaa: Aren't atheism and [insert religion] all just as much of an unknown? I never understood the whole 'I absolutely know ______ and you're full of crap' stance held by so many people.
/agnostic seems far more logical
//too much bigotry

How, exactly, is an absence of belief in deities an "unknown"?

Oh come one! You can't know whether or not you don't believe in deities!

/Agnostics like to biatch about atheists because in their mind, nobody knows. By that definition, everyone would be agnostic. I see atheism as the most sensible choice, being that every other belief system (for lack of a better term) requires you to make a leap of faith based on zero evidence. Agnosticism is for fence-sitting pussies.

Do you believe in god? Yes or no? If the answer is no then you are an atheist. a- is a prefix meaning "without", so if you have belief you are a theist. If you lack belief you are an atheist... it doesn't matter if you believe there is no god or if you don't believe their is a god, but open to the possibility if evidence presents itself.

J. Frank Parnell: Now that atheism is so trendy in the west i've decided i'm a pantheist.

/you've probably never heard of it

I only believe that god exists in kitchen items.

/Frying Pantheist

J. Frank Parnell: Now that atheism is so trendy in the west i've decided i'm a pantheist.

/you've probably never heard of it

If you want to go for hipster pretension, you should go for solipsism.

So can I assume that religion is based on fear?

farkityfarker: So can I assume that religion is based on fear?

And ignorance. Don't forget that.

Robert Heinlein believed that one could create one's own afterlife through his "World as Myth" idea that we create alternate universes from myths and stories.

That's right: if Robert Heinlein is correct, he's out there somewhere banging his mom.

acefox1: When I was stuck in the ortho wing at Wilford Hall at Lackland AFB in the mid-90's with a snapped Tib/Fib they kept pushing chaplains and evangelical nuts on me 2-3 times a day for the full week I was there. At first I was as polite as I could be saying "Sorry, I'm not a believer. I'd like to be left alone." After a week of non-stop harrassment and many episodes of unwanted "laying of hands" and faith-healing prayers I was close to carving a pentagram on my head and hanging a sign around my neck saying "Piss off fundies!"

This was back in the days when the fundies in all the services had full-time proselytizing programs going on while the brass denied or downplayed that any such thing was going on.

Piss off fundies!

/CSB

Sorry to hear that. But Wilford Hall used to be one of the best trauma units in town after Brooke Army Medical Center and UTSA.

o_blah: Spazmojack: GhostFish: Spazmojack: Ok... I guess if you want to break it down like that. I don't know that most agnostics see it that way, and I also don't think most religious adherents or atheists would also admit to being agnostic. Seems like a pretty impractical way to employ the term.

Well, that's what the terms mean. Or at least that's what they meant, until people bastardized them.

It's like someone asking what your favorite ice-cream flavor is, and you say "white."
Yeah, everyone around you has been saying "white" to mean "vanilla" for as long as you know (because people that say "vanilla" all act like assholes for some reason), but that doesn't mean your usage is technically correct.

I get that. And LouDobbs too. Alright. Let's pretend my statement applies to agnostics who are misunderstanding the term.

I've never met an agnostic person that didn't clearly believe that the knowledge of god is unknowable. Have you ever really sat around and talked to any?

Personally I'm an agnostic because I'm not comfortable with making uninformed decisions. I'm perfectly comfortable with admitting that I don't really know the answer.

Now, if you were to ask me to take a guess I would say that I doubt it, but I'll never say I know there isn't.

/actually it kills me that I'm not omniscient.
//oh well, we play the hand

Doesn't that (the bolded part of your statement) wait - what are you saying you don't know the answer to? Because as explained upthread, agnostic means that you believe that knowing whether or not there is a god is unknowable. So an agnostic knows it is impossible to know. Isn't that your answer? They way you say it, it sounds like you just don't know whether or not there is a god, which I what I was originally referring to.

I'm still not getting this am I? It seems pretty damn wonky to me. It is still like a backdoor way of thinking about the issue. I feel like I can be as sure about my position as an atheist as I can be sure that there aren't purple elephants flying around Pluto right now. Do I know this for certain? Could we ever know this? Is it knowable? Not with current technology. Does that mean I should be agnostic about flying purple elephants around (former planet) Pluto?

here to help: James F. Campbell: "I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." - Isaac Asimov, Free Inquiry (Spring 1982)

That's not logical. It's arrogant, self serving and pretentious.

You are correct. Withholding belief in entities whose existence is asserted but wholly unsupported by any actual data is illogical. Logic demands that all proposed hypothetical entities for which absolutely no supporting evidence is ever provided be accepted without question.

farkityfarker: So can I assume that religion is based on fear?

That's what it boils down to.

Need to quiet that yearning for meaning? Need something to keep the masses in line? Need a good reason to bash your competitors skull in and take what's his? Need something to make death less frightening and overwhelming?

Screw hard work and study. Religion can give you all of that with no effort.

In other news ,subby completely misses the point every day he's gone to church for his entire life. Most likely will live on and die, still missing the point.

When I went through a fairly major physical issue a few years back, the hospital chaplain came by to talk. He was Jewish. I told him up front that I was an atheist, and didn't need a chaplain. He was OK with that.

The next day, when he came in, I was watching a baseball game. Turns out, the guy was a huge Red Sox fan, and hadn't been able to talk baseball with a patient in a while. We had a great chat, although we disagreed on the DH rule.

That guy was an awesome chaplain. I'm still not sure if he was an actual baseball fan, or just knew enough to fake it to connect with a patient.

In a universe where nothing is impossible just highly improbable, maybe its not a good idea to completely discount every fanciful notion.

Ed Grubermann: Dimensio: Ed Grubermann: Dimensio: JaaVaa: Aren't atheism and [insert religion] all just as much of an unknown? I never understood the whole 'I absolutely know ______ and you're full of crap' stance held by so many people.
/agnostic seems far more logical
//too much bigotry

How, exactly, is an absence of belief in deities an "unknown"?

And how is refusing to make up your mind "logical"?

Your question is a non-sequitur and does not address my question.

It's a rhetorical question.

You still have not addressed my question.

BrainyBear: Yep, I served as an atheist chaplain in San Francisco as part of my seminary training. Very difficult, very satisfying work -- the patients were always quite glad to talk with me.

/also UU

Starr King, eh?