atheism vs. agnosticism

I had the same experience in college; one of my best friends was a huge Kierkegaard fan who dreamed of either becoming a minister or a cinematographer. When I had conversations with him about religion, compared to the lockstep conservative Christians I tussled with in high school, I could no longer "win" the argument, since he was so smart and philosophical about the whole subject. It definitely opened me up more to the possibility of a spiritual dimension than I was willing to concede previously.

"If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Hi Maria

Well i dont think Gods outside of it at all, indeed I think God is in everyone but certainly caring for others makes for a better world no argumet there.Is just that isnt truth beauty love etc etc are all subjective and relative and as such meaningless concepts without an objective moral guidleine. J.L. Mackie, an atheist and respected philosopher, provides a devastating argument for why, if there is no God, we can have no obligation to be moral.

Pol Pot, Hitler, STalin,Mao great recent compassionate examples of atheists, joking joking. On the subject of tyrants I cant resist Lewis again "How monotonous all the great tyrants and conquerors have been:
how gloriously different the saints."

Peace!

He also liked to speak in a cryptic made-up language that was link a fully-exemporized slang; he would make up words for people and things constantly and drop them into conversation without context. The best example of this was the time when, in reference to my parents, he asked me, "So, how are Chaga and Figo?" and, despite never having heard my parents referred to in that manner before, I knew which one was Chaga and which one was Figo. He also spent a year talking exlcusively like a pastiche of Dana Carvey's most famous SNL characters/impressions (I loved being in classes with him).

Because I think it's culturally and spiritually useful to have a religion, I identify as Christian -- a lot of people who loved and cared about me spent a lot of effort trying to drum some Christian morality into my young heart, and I haven't yet come up with any overwhelming reason to discard that. In terms of actual, interior, pit-of-my-soul BELIEF, I lean closer to agnosticism. Does it go without saying that I attend a UU church?

I say I'm an agnostic, because I'm not sure if there is anything 'more' beyond life, I wouldn't mind if there was.

Dan & jaymc - I had the same experience last year. In high school I was like "meh I'm agnostic but I don't know what to do to really think about God so I'll wait until I have better time and resources in college," not expecting to actually DO so. And then I get assigned a roommate who is one of the nicest, smartest people I've met, who has an amazing and deep sense of beauty and who doesn't blow off questions like "how can all suffering possibly be for a greater good?" as just a lack of faith...so, oops, those midnight conversations sort of DID change my view of Christianity. It's a little jarring, though, how so many of the Christians I know here often have the same sorts of doubts I do even though they believe in God...it's like "whoa is there EVER a resolution if you're honest with yourself?"

near as i can tell, they're just agnostics who go to church about it!

I went to a Dominican high school, where we were taught this. The Dominicans are kind of weird - I mean, they pretty much showed me the path to agnosticism.

[T]he sacred orgasm is your Divine Right. Your beautiful bodies were designed for this in order to attract evolving souls into your plane, third dimensional planet Earth. The reptilian-based tyrants have kept you from this knowledge. They have imprisoned you in guilt and shame; you are ashamed of your bodies which are works of art.

They think after God, starting from the death of God without caring about what might mean the death of God, it's "existence", if it still exists; the tranquil atheist doesn't care about this kind of questions.

Deleuze explains it's less caring about a static negation or a fight against God than a dynamic method emerging on a positive proposition aiming at building after the fight.

OTM

This guy embodies surreal silliness.

Touche Daniel !

THe self is never an illusion eh, your gestures are all original! Immortality beckons!

To cite CS Lewis again: "Doubts are the ants in the pants of Faith".

As I said, I liked the bits about the development of the Christ 'myth' and I think they are pretty strong - the medieval insistance on Christ having a virgin birth is a good example of how changing social attitudes affect these characters. I didn't want to post on your thread either, like how you don't want to step on a fresh snowfall - it's very cool.

I left that out, because it was boring (altho I talked about elsewhere on that board: it's about copyright), but nice calling me on it: you read carefully.
the argument to explain these 'mentionnings' : copysts. A text lacked a little bit of text? they add it! tacitus doesn'T mention jesus: now, that's not very nice of him isn'it? let's correct tacitus then! let's correct flavius joseph by adding a sentense about jésus. no copyright then... not very honest one might say, but as I said they were in performative logic of truth building.

Since Dan denies that any person could be intrinsically good or evil, how does his attributed emotion of "hate" make sense?

Not on external grounds. And Steve's blog doesn’t regard it's use of schizophrenia as being confused with MPD.

Well alright then.

(these are the slowest animated gifs ever)

Woah, somebody doesn't understand spacial relations. That inverter be fucked up, man.

This is rather simplistic, but it doesn't have congruent reasoning. I am so confused.