Ace Posted April 4, 2007 Please feel free to have a bit of a go at this poll - hoping to get a bit of understanding on our community - perticularly the religious side of things Please add any information or interesting points below - I would like any feedback you got Please note - this is not to add more fuel to the current fires raging between religion and evolution, but to help myself and others gain understanding. If you disagree with anything here, or wish for anything to be changed/added/deleted, please let me know and I'll do my best p.s. just hope I can figure out how to put up the polls without looking like a twat If there are any technical difficulties, no doubt they'll be my fault lol -Ace Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Auxin Posted April 4, 2007 Well we know Ace is neither buddhist nor muslim (you spelled buddhist wrong and put both muslim and islam in... the latter is the religion, the former is a follower of islam ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ace Posted April 4, 2007 lol - my bad - I tried to avoid typos and cock ups, but I seemed to have missed a couple Sorry folks!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
devance Posted April 4, 2007 Your absolved of Blame Ace. Try raising a ant colony. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ace Posted April 4, 2007 Lol - I could have an ant army!! haha Nah - I'd probably stuff that up too Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shruman Posted April 4, 2007 Good poll ace, u should probly change or have another question, Do psychedelics or other substances aid you in your spirituality? I consider myself spiritual but atheist if that makes sense, & think psychedelics aid spirituality. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ace Posted April 4, 2007 Thanks Shruman - good question - though I cant seem to be able to alter the poll now...? I would be in the same boat as you I think - aetheist, but looking for higher meaning thru plants. I should have included something for that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Amulte Posted April 4, 2007 My hats off to you Ace, good effort in trying to include everything in the poll. ALSO very glad you included 'other' in the questions, esspecially in the "Which do you believe to be the 'correct' explanation of life on Earth?" question Humans came from Lyra and Pleiadees, lived on Mars and Malona, blew up the latter and moved to earth. Malona's remnants are our solar systems current asteroid belt if i remember correctly LOL Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ace Posted April 4, 2007 Thanks for the warm response Amulte - makes it all worthwhile Are you fair dinkum with your explanation of life on earth? If so, any chance you could go into more detail? Kinda got me interested Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
komodo Posted April 4, 2007 hey ace thanks for the poll! i had the same prob at the end, where id like to say that mind altering substances have aided in spiritual insights, but not really religious ideas. more like spiritual visions of this temporal world. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
occidentalis Posted April 4, 2007 Hi Ace, I think it's quite important that atheism is not the only 'areligious' choice - atheism means a positive belief that god does not exist. There are other terms, such as agnosticism, which is an inability to say whether or not there is a god. Some of those above mentioning spirituality without religion as such would probably be filed under agnostic. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chilli Posted April 4, 2007 (edited) Hi Ace,I think it's quite important that atheism is not the only 'areligious' choice - atheism means a positive belief that god does not exist. There are other terms, such as agnosticism, which is an inability to say whether or not there is a god. Some of those above mentioning spirituality without religion as such would probably be filed under agnostic. There are plenty of atheists who don't have a positive belief that God does not exist, they just lack a positive belief in any God or gods... this in my opinion much more reasonable form of atheism would probably be called soft atheism, and the more militant kind is usually called hard atheism. In other words, many atheists are open to the possibility that God or gods may exist, they just haven't seen convincing evidence for it. Also, there are a surprising number of religious atheists around, for example atheistic Christian priests, or atheistic Buddhists. I find the questions a little restricting, but I usually do in polls... I will try to answer as best I can, then qualify my answers here. Okay, I chose "combination of the two" and "other" for question one, since I definitely believe in microevolution, haven't made up my mind about macroevolution, and am open to the idea of "progressive creationism" which posits successive stages of creation of animals etc, and allows for pre-human hominids. I find many intelligent design arguments persuasive enough, and despite the many arguments posited by hardcore evolutionists (there are theistic and pantheistic evolutionists as well) I just can't shake the belief that a creator is necessary... let the flaming begin. For religion, I chose Christianity, Buddhist and Other, because I was raised as a Christian and still see many things through this filter, although I have trouble with the idea of an inerrant Bible, and am basically repulsed by the attitudes and prejiduces of many Christians I know... although there are some good ones. I ticked Buddhist simply because I think some Buddhist traditions are very insightful, and I ticked other, because I wouldn't really classify as either a Christian or a Buddhist in the way they are usually understood. By this reasoning, I probably should have hit Jewish, since I love much of the ancient Hebrew wisdom literature such as Ecclesiastes, the Psalms and Proverbs. Psychedelics are another tricky one, I certainly have felt like I've had mystical experiences on psychedelics, but none that have substantially informed my current beliefs in any way. For instance, I've felt quite powerful union with things and people, once I felt like I was a rock lying under the sky for thousands of years, but this doesn't lead me to believe in monism or pantheism. I think its all chemical, but so is thought and mystical experience that is not caused by drugs, I just dont think because something is chemical that it is not also spiritual, I think it is maybe more holistic. Combined with a basic belief in some kind of creator, I wonder why these plants exist, and think there must be a reason, although I get worried when I consider that they might be the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which makes us like god, and separates us from him. Edited April 4, 2007 by IllegalBrain Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
occidentalis Posted April 4, 2007 (edited) There are plenty of atheists who don't have a positive belief that God does not exist, they just lack a positive belief in any God or gods... this in my opinion much more reasonable form of atheism would probably be called soft atheism, and the more militant kind is usually called hard atheism. In other words, many atheists are open to the possibility that God or gods may exist, they just haven't seen convincing evidence for it. Then they're not atheists! They're agnostics. Theos = god, gods, or the divine Gnosis = the experience of god or the divine A-theism = the absence/nonexistance of god. A-gnosticism = the absence of direct experiential evidence to support belief in god. Atheism is almost a form of religion in itself, because it is a belief that requires faith. Wihle the existance of god may be unlikely from what we know about the universe, there is still no direct evidence of his/her/its nonexistance, so to be an atheist is to believe in a hypothesis that is untestable. Edited April 4, 2007 by creach Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chilli Posted April 4, 2007 (edited) Hi creach, Then they're not atheists! They're agnostics. Theos = god, gods, or the divine Gnosis = the experience of god or the divine A-theism = the absence/nonexistance of god. A-gnosticism = the absence of direct experiential evidence to support belief in god. Atheism is almost a form of religion in itself, because it is a belief that requires faith. Wihle the existance of god may be unlikely from what we know about the universe, there is still no direct evidence of his/her/its nonexistance, so to be an atheist is to believe in a hypothesis that is untestable. I'm aware of the etymology of the words in question, but the definition that many atheists choose, and that any good dictionary will also support is either 1. The belief that there is no God(s), 2. A lack of belief in the existence of God(s)... the second kind is commonly referred to as soft atheism, and is probably the more popular of the two. The kind of faith you refer to is only required for hard atheism, not soft atheism. *edit* I just noticed your definition for gnosis is not strictly correct, gnosis simply means knowledge in the Greek, the connotations you've ascribed to it grew out of the Gnostic movement, an early Christian heresy, although it does imply direct knowledge rather than theoretical. Edited April 4, 2007 by IllegalBrain Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ace Posted April 5, 2007 Thanks everyone for their thoughts on my poll - sorry for the fairly restricted options - I tried to make them as open as I could, but then again, it was a bit of a rushed job an i didnt expect so many replies I havent actually heard of agnostic - but I could imagine there a few people in that boat - sorry for not adding it If anyone knows how to edit the poll, please let me know. Cheers Ace Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MORG Posted April 5, 2007 Your absolved of Blame Ace.Try raising a ant colony. Haha Devance, that cracked me up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
komodo Posted April 5, 2007 (edited) atheism can be used to describe the rejection of a hypothesis rather than an assertion or a 'lack'. it seems to me to be the literal usage, and is the sense i intended when i ticked it. Edited April 5, 2007 by komodo Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chilli Posted April 6, 2007 atheism can be used to describe the rejection of a hypothesis rather than an assertion or a 'lack'. it seems to me to be the literal usage, and is the sense i intended when i ticked it. The prefix a- denotes 'without' so if you want to stick to a strictly literal interpretation, it would be 'without theism'... more like a 'lack' than a 'rejection' However, your preferred definition is in line with what I described as 'soft' atheism... all extant theories about God(s) are rejected for lack of evidence deemed acceptable. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
komodo Posted April 6, 2007 strong atheism: the philosophical position that god(s) do not exist. thats the type i've long associated myself with. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chilli Posted April 6, 2007 strong atheism: the philosophical position that god(s) do not exist. thats the type i've long associated myself with. Sounds like an assertion. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
