[Nuke]

i also disagree that science is a faith. science is a process of discovery. it is true that a great number of scientists are athiest. the mindest required for science requires such a person to question everything, which makes religon hard to accept.

two theries oin particular cause religion to seriously oppose science. the big bang and the theory of human evolution (the picture of the erecting monkeys). both of these theories contradict religon to such a degree that religous institutions regard science as a threat to faith. but science itself is not a faith.

[Nico]

there's also the dinosaurs that disappeared like 60 million years before god created the universe, and coutless stuff along those lines, but that's a detail

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Nico
But still, that won't prevent him to send us to hell if we don't?
Lol, I call that inrequired love

I actually read something quite interesting about this very subject today.

[q]There's a difference between intrinsic value and instrumental value. Something has intrinsic value if it's valuable and good in and of itself; something has instrumental value if it's valueable as a means to an end. For example, saving lives is intrinsically good. Driving on the right side of the street is an instrumental value; it's just good because it helps keep order. If society decided that everyone should drive on the left side, that would be okay. The goal is to preserve order and save lives.
Now, when you treat people as instrumentally valuable, or only as a means to an end, you're dehumanizing them, and that's wrong. You're treating people as things when you treat them merely as a means to an end. You only respect people when you treat them as having intrinsic value.
If you were to force people to do something against their free choice, you would be dehumanizing them. You would be saying that the good of what you want to do is more valuable than respecting their choices, and so you're treating people as a means to an end by requiring them to do something they don't want. That's what it would be like if God forced everyone to go to heaven.
If God has given people free will, then there's no guarantee that everybody's going to choose to cooperate with him. The option of forcing everyone to go to heaven is immoral, because it's dehumanizing; it strips them of the dignity of making their own decision; it denies them their freedom of choice; and it treats them as a means to an end.
Go dcan't make people's character for them, and people who do evil or cultivate false beliefs start a slide away from God that ultimately ends in hell. God respects human freedom. In fact, it would be unloving - a sort of divine rape - to force people to accept heaven and God if they didn't really want them. When God allows people to say 'no' to him, he actually respects and dignifies them.[/q]

What do you think?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Kazan
I am insulted that you call science a higher power

you completely miss the point when you call science a higher power - i refuse to vote in said poll until it is fixed to have a "none" option

Aw naw!!  the poll will be ruined!! Aieeeee!

[Nico]

Lol, I think it's the same: we have the freedom to not believe in it, ok, but we have to pay if we don't ( in other words: I can let you be wrong, but oh man you're so gonna regret it, for the rest of eternity, right? ). That's completly idiotic: we don't choose between heaven or hell, we chose between believing in god or not. If we don't believe in god, we don't believe in hell or heaven. So where's the link? that's awkward. You know, that sounds like a cheap reward system: " if you go to the church, you'll go to heaven, if you buy 2 cookies boxes, the third one is given". Faith is sold for something you've never seen.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Bobboau
kaz there is a 'none' option, 3rd fom last

Yeah but it mixes agnostics with atheists. I really hate it when they do that cause the differerences are actually larger than between Christianity and Islam which got seperate entries.

Lumping the two together is just plain stupid. The BBC poll that started this debate lumped the two together and ended up with ridiculous statistics as a result (For instance that 33% of atheists prayed regularly )

[Nico]

if you pray, you're not agnostic

[beatspete]

Science is my god.  If a question can't be answered by science, then the only we ourselves can answer it.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Nico
if you pray, you're not agnostic

Maybe but that's even more true for atheists

I suspect that a lot of lapsed christians etc were including themselves as atheists as well. Also agnostics can pray it's just that their prayers are somewhat directionless

"Dear whatever higher power there is......"

[Nico]

lol, seen like that, I call upon the name of god a lot too: god damn it!
Does this makes me count in,

[Nuke]

Originally posted by beatspete
Science is my god.  If a question can't be answered by science, then the only we ourselves can answer it.

science is a process by which people aquire knoledge. any question andwered by science has been answered by people. i find your statement redudndent. its hard to define science as a god.

[Blaise Russel]

You also must consider that many people don't know what agnosticism actually is. Not "I don't know", but "I cannot know", doncherknow.

[karajorma]

We really need a term for the I don't knows. They tend to get lumped in with the cannot knows because they are somewhat close in the effect it has on their lives if not in actual belief.

[Singh]

Well....truth to be told, i'm not atheist. but neither am I religious.

To a certain degree, I believe that a 'higher' being existed at one point in time, and may have played an important part in creation of the universe (as in laying the physical laws, or maybe even just creating the infinite numbers of universes so that at least 1 will have life and the right mix). But I do not believe he/she/it is here now.

Also, I do not believe in the 'ultimate' God either. There is always something bigger. If you combined this thought with other theories, technically, each individual IS god in a sense.....

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Blaise Russel
Not "I don't know", but "I cannot know", doncherknow.

Oh man, I was sure before, now I'm confused.

I don't know (), though, most of the people I know () who are agnostic, have made that decision quite consciously, so they'll make sure they know what agnosticism is. Well, for the most part.

[Nuke]

i always thought agnosticism was the disregard of god, while athisim is the disbelief of god.

[Blaise Russel]

We really need a term for the I don't knows. They tend to get lumped in with the cannot knows because they are somewhat close in the effect it has on their lives if not in actual belief.

Yeah. The thing is, "I don't know" isn't really a position on God as much as it is a statement about oneself - it's not God that is uncertain in existence, wavering halfway between existing and not existing... it's the person who is uncertain.

i always thought agnosticism was the disregard of god, while athisim is the disbelief of god.

A-, without, -gnostic, knowledge.

[Kazan]

Nuke:

Agnosticism: "We cannot know"
Atheism: "There is absolutely no evidence for the existance of one, so why should i believe in it"


What pisses me off the mosts is when people are having doubting periods and call themselves atheists when they still have supernaturalistic beliefs - then they lapsed back into their misguided  theology and that theology get's to brag about having an "exatheist"

[aldo_14]

I guess i'd have to reclassify myself as 'agnostic' ahead of aetheistic then, as i'm not closed to the possibility of a higher power.... albeit I've mentioned my particular beliefes in a number of other places anyways.

[karajorma]

Kazan you're correct. Atheists can't lapse back into religion. If you do so you weren't an atheist in the first place.
There are lots of people who classify themselves as atheists who in fact are in fact religious in one way or another so you're not the first  to mislabel yourself Aldo.