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Goodbye Jesus

What Are We Today?


R. S. Martin

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Don't know if I can think of all the possibilities. Also, the poll is limited. I will list what I can think of in the space that is available and leave an option for "other." If you choose "other" feel free to explain. I'm curious to see where all of us are today.

 

This is in the Colesseum so let's keep it respectful so that it is "safe" to talk about one's true convictions no matter what they are. No preaching or imposing beliefs, though.

 

At the same time, I consider it decent to discuss beliefs and explain why we believe what we do. I think there is a difference between sharing my opinion about truth and telling you what you should believe.

 

Question 3:

 

  • You can choose as many options as you like.
  • Feel free to comment on my definitions on agnostic and atheist, etc.
  • Re Taoist: I don't know if there is more than one tradition but this would be different from all other traditions if it did not develop into various branches.

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I wasn't sure to vote for agnostic or atheist agnostic so I just checked both because my beliefs keep bouncing back and forth. Some days I feel like I can't make a statement about the existence of God, but other days I feel like God is an irrelevant option in my life, and I wonder why I continue to bother to hold onto the agnostic label at all. I feel like God's existence cannot be known but at the same time his existence is unimportant to me. I just don't see why I should continue to waste my life wondering whether or not God is real when it's God's responsibility to prove himself to me if he wants me to worship him so badly. Since to me the lack of evidence suggests God doesn't seem to think it's that important for me to worship him if he is real, then it isn't important to me to bother with his existence, either. And if God is so petty to punish me for simply staying true to myself when it was his fault for not providing sufficient evidence, then he wasn't worth it to begin with. If actual evidence of God's existence is provided, I'm more than open than to change my beliefs, but until then God is an irrelevant option to me and I have more important things in life to worry about.

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As for the label category, like Neon G, I could not 'just pick one'. I checked the first four boxes.

 

I'm just really done with BELIEF. Seriously. I'm at a point where I either know something, or I do not. Belief is insufficient. If we were talking transportation, belief is a tricycle. Knowledge is is a turbocharged high performance car. As for a supreme being? I say evidence pending. I neither believe, nor disbelieve in a supreme being. Neither belief nor disbelief in such a being alters my life in any way. Still gotta get up, brush teeth, go to work. Belief effects nothing important that goes into a regular day working to make what we want out of life. Belief is not my life. So belief has been duly tossed to the curb.

 

Right now, I'm working to deal with what IS. Putting a lot of research now into getting the best value on groceries. Yeah. I said groceries. Getting the best value on groceries keeps money in the bank for other things. The importance of this knowledge is obvious. If evidence came in for irrefutable evidence of a supreme being tomorrow, I'd find it interesting, but how would it change my life? It wouldn't. Not until clear communications were established with such a being. Existence, after all, does not validate religion.

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Thank you for your heartfelt responses, white raven and Neon Genesis. I'm glad I set Question 3 for multiple choices. I know that when/if I get around to voting I can't choose just one, either. I knew from talking with others on here that I'm not alone in this. In assition, the terms atheist, agnostic, and christian are defined so many ways by so many people, not to mention that all of us have our very own special menus of what we think about various matters.

 

White Raven, your reference to getting the best value on groceries wasn't lost on me. It shouldn't be lost, either, on a god who sees the little sparrow fall, should it?

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I'm surprised that so far only atheists and agnostics have responded. We have people coming here thinking this is an atheist board only, yet I know from reading posts, avatars, and profiles that we have a much more diverse group than that. An all-time favourite is our German friend Thurisaz and his witty wife Islington. Pagans, to the best of my knowledge. They're not on here every day but I made sure to have a category for them. Then there's the lady who converted to Judaism. I haven't seen her for quite a while but she may still be lurking. And we have a variety of Christians. I realize that life in the Colesseum is slower than in some other areas and it may just be that people haven't found it yet. Just wanted to assure folks that all are invited.

 

Just to be fair, here's what I voted:

 

  • The existence of God is unimportant.
  • I believe God may or may not exist; I have more important things to worry about.
  • Though my position may (or may not) change in the future, today I am a(n) atheist (no god belief), and agnostic atheist (see no evidence for god and have no god belief).

I really don't know what else to add. I've expressed myself a lot in posts throughout the forums and can answer questions about how and why I arrived at my present position if anyone wants to know.

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I missed out the Buddhist one, since I'm finding more and more I like in Zen Buddhist though

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The existence of Divine or other supernatural entities in general can't be known either way; the existence of the abrahamic monster, however, is clearly disproven.

 

That said, as the regulars in here know, I'm decidedly a heathen today :pureevil:

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  • Super Moderator

Everyone here is worshipping Satan and they just don't know it.

 

Seriously, good poll that makes one define himself (HERself implied).

 

I guess some of us don't bother looking anymore for the supernatural, and others still have hope that there is something more than is apparent to our five senses. Anything is possible but probability is the key to what beliefs I can settle on.

 

Whatever gets you through the night, it's alright, it's alright. (Apologies to John Lennon).

 

- Chris

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Everyone here is worshipping Satan and they just don't know it.

 

Seriously, good poll that makes one define himself (HERself implied).

 

- Chris

 

Thank you. That was part of the reason I set it up.

 

I guess some of us don't bother looking anymore for the supernatural, and others still have hope that there is something more than is apparent to our five senses. Anything is possible but probability is the key to what beliefs I can settle on.

 

Whatever gets you through the night, it's alright, it's alright. (Apologies to John Lennon).

 

Well spoken, my brother. After a time, the energies run out. Honestly, there's a lot of personal experience and seeking behind the options in that poll, esp. in the fundamentalist Christian-to-atheist spectrum.

 

I probably didn't have to say that. It's obvious to anybody who reads my posts and looks at the poll. Oh well...

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I propose otherism or work in progressism :HaHa:

 

The existence of god... (meaning christian god) is irrational unless you're talking about a creator... in that case there is only potential for a conscious creator (for example... Mr. Bean with his teddy bear tripping on a cosmic string vial 14 billion years ago).

 

Belief in a god.... without proof is also irrational

 

Current position.... work in progressism.... or maybe alien sucking twerp :lmao:

 

You can be an "otherist" or "work in progresserist" sucking aliens if that is your position. You're a member of exC and one of the purposes of this poll is to see what positions members hold. Thank you for voting.

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Reboot, maybe it is limiting. But the social scientist in me does not see it that way. Asking what people believe on a few items of life is like taking a few blood samples. It says something about the person but only something. Polls are limited in what they can say just as blood samples are limited in what they can say.

 

Looking at the poll and saying "Reboot voted such and such, thus Reboot is this and thus" would be like looking at a vial of blood taken from your veins and saying "This is Reboot."

 

Vast amounts of information could be derived from that vial of blood. But the information would be very limited. Likewise, vast amounts of information can be derived from a poll, but the information is very limited.

 

Still an interesting poll :)

 

Thank you.

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We're standing at a total of 27 votes right now. I find it very interesting that for Question 2, the idea that God "does not exist" and the idea that God "may or may not exist; I have more important things to worry about" have been running neck and neck from the very beginning. There's 12 each at the moment.

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Good poll Ruby, very thorough. :3:

 

Did you make this out of idle curiosity, or is this part of an academic work?

 

I have a very limited experience with survey and poll data from some study in Sociology, this poll would make for good data IMO.

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Good poll Ruby, very thorough. :3:

 

Did you make this out of idle curiosity, or is this part of an academic work?

 

I have a very limited experience with survey and poll data from some study in Sociology, this poll would make for good data IMO.

 

There were quite a number of motivating factors that went into this but no, it's not an academic project per se. One of my goals is to have a thread we can show new-comers to prove that this is not an atheist-only forum. But, unless the religious folks (deists, pagans, etc.) come forward and vote in somewhat larger numbers than they have been doing so far, the poll is going to fail its purpose in that respect.

 

INVITATION TO DEISTS/THEISTS:

Your chance to show the world that this is not an atheist-only site.

This is exChristian.

 

Vote today!

 

The feeling I get is that atheists have been suppressed so long and so severely, and Dave WM makes this a safe place in which we can speak our minds on the matter, so that now we are speaking up in large numbers and with the volume turned up. This makes for an atmosphere that theists feel seriously uncomfortable with. Except for our self-confident and jolly Thurisaz and ever-vocal Gramps who couldn't be silenced if life depended on it, and a few others. Then there are a few Christians like Open-Minded and Amanda who wouldn't take offense no matter what. I don't know if I'm right but my guess is this is why we're not seeing more theists voting. We'll see if my brightly painted invitation changes that.

 

About it making good poll data. Do you mean the results? You'd have to keep in mind that exC is not representative of the general population. The questionnaire is drawn from my personal experience, education, and research. I don't have the brains for number-crunching. Otherwise, I'd probably be in sociology of religion. That's basically what this is and it has occurred to me to ask a former prof what potential the questionnaire has to be adapted for a real survey.

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I'm a Theist? and a gobshite :fdevil:

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Taoist of the I Kuan Tao tradition. :)

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Hindu - Advaita Vedanta

Buddhism - Madhyamika

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I'm a Theist? and a gobshite :fdevil:

 

Gramps I don't know what you are. For the longest time I thought you were hard-core atheist. Then in this thread you said Zen Buddhism. I am a very ignorant bloke when it comes to Zen. I thought there's a deity of some sort that goes with Zen. Isn't there?

 

I like you regardless. Just trying to do my PR bit. ;)

 

Deva, so you're our resident Hinduist (is that the proper way of saying it???) I knew there was at least one person--I saw it in someone's profile or in a post or avatar somewhere but could not remember who or where.

 

AlexyLady, I was in the shoutbox with you the other day when you described Taoism to Sean. There was no time to comment a lot there but that really helped me get some handle on it. Or at least, the best I have so far. :)

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Deva, so you're our resident Hinduist (is that the proper way of saying it???) I knew there was at least one person--I saw it in someone's profile or in a post or avatar somewhere but could not remember who or where.

 

LOL Ruby, I think you just made up a new word "Hinduist", but its appropriate I suppose.

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Agnostic Ásatrúar who dabbles in Zen with varying degrees of success. I like to chat up and read about and offer toasts to the Norse gods, but don't yet have any evidence that would hold up in a double-blind study. And I have no idea what the gods actually are.

 

Regarding omnimax gods such as Yahweh, I come in at #6 on the Richard Dawkins scale... De facto atheist.

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RubySera,

I voted Deist. I'm still fuzzy on what I believe exactly but I just primarily believe that some higher power created the universe. I hope there's some kind of afterlife, but if there isn't, there isn't ,nothing I can do about it. (I really hope there is one, because well the idea of ceasing to be sucks, and I'd like to meet all of you in eternity, and all the cool folks that have gone on before like Einstein, Newton, Paine, Ingersoll etc.). I've dabbled in a little magick, mainly just trying to affect things by sheer willpower, so maybe I have some pagan leanings.( I also once invoked what I call The Lord of the Stars(Just asked it to help) to be a little faster at work and it seemed to work or maybe it was just me psyching myself up to make myself go faster.

I'm still puzzling through what I believe, but that's it for right now.

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RubySera,

I voted Deist. I'm still fuzzy on what I believe exactly but I just primarily believe that some higher power created the universe. I hope there's some kind of afterlife, but if there isn't, there isn't ,nothing I can do about it. (I really hope there is one, because well the idea of ceasing to be sucks, and I'd like to meet all of you in eternity, and all the cool folks that have gone on before like Einstein, Newton, Paine, Ingersoll etc.).

 

Hey Tab, love you for that. Wouldn't that just be so neat for all of the reall great and interesting people of all times to have a great get-together for all eternity.

 

Agnostic Ãsatrúar who dabbles in Zen with varying degrees of success. I like to chat up and read about and offer toasts to the Norse gods, but don't yet have any evidence that would hold up in a double-blind study. And I have no idea what the gods actually are.

 

Regarding omnimax gods such as Yahweh, I come in at #6 on the Richard Dawkins scale... De facto atheist.

 

I like how candid you are. I'm learning so much from these posts. I haven't read Dawkins yet. Haven't seen his scale or whatever.

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Based on what I know of you Tab, your deity has infeasibly large, very firm, breasts...

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It does look as though the majority of members are agnostic or atheist or some combination thereof. I thought my bright blue invitation would draw a batch of pagans and Christians out of the woodwork.

 

I just find myself feeling confused sometimes as to what makes most sense. Just now I was reading Dave the WM's testimony again. I feel like I'm back on solid ground. Here's a quote from near the end of his post:

 

webmaster said:

 

I do not consider myself an agnostic anymore, finding fence sitting untenable. I could say I am now an evil Atheist, or I could use the softer sounding title of Freethinker. For now I will simply call myself an Ex-Christian, though there is more to it than being an ex something or another. I no longer believe in any gods or goddesses, they are all primitive imaginings reflecting an escape from fear and ignorance. There are many things we do not know about the world and the universe at large, but not knowing the how's or why's of things does not predispose us to believing in a giant Sky Daddy, or Tri-Daddy, or whatever.

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The other road would have been to get off the religious bandwagon (the christian/athiest absolutist scale) and give humanity time to peel the secrets off the reality onion.

 

... but then again everybody's in a hurry to resolve the hard stuff with an easy label. Atheism, for lack of alternative, has become the fast food solution, reactionary move against irrationality. A black hole where imagination, out of the box thinking also gets sucked in. Welcome to the dawn of a new absolutist box.

 

Y'know, I really resent this characterization of my position, Reboot. As you well know, from your thread (now closed) on a similar topic, I identify as one who absolutely denies the credibility of any god-claim ever presented to me.

 

As you do not, and could not know (so why would you speculate that this is the easy-label fast-food solution?), mine is a conclusion reached after more than fifty years of thought, reading, research, soul-searching and endless, sometimes circular, always exhausting, almost death-defying marathon discussions with people from all over the religious spectrum. It is, at the very least, unseemly of you to heave this position of mine onto the religious bandwagon, especially since I do not evangelize. I couldn't care less whether or not anybody reaches my same conclusion.

 

There's an old joke about the guy who goes to see his doctor, saying, "Doc, I can't pee anymore." The doctor asks, "How old are you?" The guy says, "Ninety-two." With a wave of his hand, the doctor says, "You peed long enough."

 

I would thank you, Reboot, to take into account that at the age of sixty-five, maybe I've peed this toxin long enough!

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