Which of these youthful ideals...

Dean wrote: I've copied these quotes from condor's Is faith allways [sic] bad? thread because as I said there, I don't think he is talking specifically about religious faith. And we started this discussion here anyway. <span style="line-height: 18.2px;"> HackettFan wrote: The word 'belief' has an unfortunate range of meaning that does not suit these conversations. Sometimes we use it to mean something like 'consider'. 'I believe he's a good man' is used in the same fashion as 'I think he's a good man'. I think/believe Dean was referring to this earlier. Even if I use the word believe in this case, it is not interchangeable with how the word is ever intended by any given religion. </span><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"> Sean Trane wrote: <span style="line-height: 1.4;">@HFan: I'd also like to add that if I share an uneasiness with some words chosen (but not belief or faith), it's more to describe my stance... I don't feel the word knowledge or conviction </span>(the words Iuse, I've not read anyone else in this thread using them<span style="line-height: 1.4;">) are not really appropriate to describe my stance (</span>even that word is not good for what I mean<span style="line-height: 1.4;">).</span><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span> <div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">There are other words, such as 'truth' and 'absolute', whose connotations differ from a religious interpretation to a secular one. </span><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">When I was a christian the phrase "I believe in god" never meant "I believe that god exists" for me. As a christian the existence of god was a given, as were </span>all the articles of faith that are called 'beliefs<span style="line-height: 1.4;">' - so affirming those beliefs seemed to me to be an unnecessary thing to do, an all-knowing god would simply know me. To me the pivotal word in the phrase "I believe in god" was neither 'believe' nor 'god' but '</span><b style="line-height: 1.4;">in<span style="line-height: 1.4;">'... the easiest way I can explain that is to use the christian adversary - as a christian I believed that satan existed, but I didn't believe </span><b style="line-height: 1.4;">in <span style="line-height: 1.4;">satan. </span><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">This is why I didn't get a</span>gnosticism b<span style="line-height: 1.4;">ecause to me that's like saying "I believe in god but I'm not sure that god exists" [I know that's not how it is for the majority who call themselves agnostic, but that's how it felt to me at the time]. My brief transition through agnosticism to atheism did not start with doubting that god existed but with "I believe that god exists but I'm not sure I believe in god any more", doubting the existence of god then became a consequence of that loss of faith, and from that the atheist stance of "I do !{believe} that any gods exist or ever existed" was an end-point conclusion. </span><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span><div style="line-height: 18.2px;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;">Monotheists have reached this end-point conclusion with all other gods, having gone from "you shall have no other gods but me" (Exodus 20:3) to "</span>there is no god besides me" (Isaiah 44:6 and several others) with mention of many other (presumed to be false) gods in between. Monotheism is the denial of the existence of all gods bar one, all would claim that Zeus, Horus and all the other 'pagan' gods did not exist without requiring proof that they didn't, and none would say that not believing in the pantheon of Greco-Roman gods was in itself a belief system.

I agree all of this Dean. Believing that there is a god really leaves a lot of open territory if that's all there is to it. For the sake of argument, there could be a deity who was responsible for a single creation event, but nothing else. If one were to persuade an atheist to believe this, one still hasn't gotten far into making that person a religionist with just that alone. Those arguing on the side of religion tend to underestimate this in discussions because they tend to conflate their putative facts with a whole belief system. It is logically possible for someone to believe that there is a god, but not believe in prayer. But like you say, to believe in god, the 'in' brings a larger package of cultural memes with it. It seems unlikely in most cases that someone would identify as believing in God yet not believe in prayer among other things.

Dayvenkirq wrote: rogerthat wrote: Hmm, that kind of sounds grim.  Hope you are ok.  Nah, debating team is all dormant in spite of the scintillating developments in Greece followed by an even more scintillating anti climax.  It was just me and JJLehto discussing economics with Toaster Mantis chipping in at times for a while, now not even that.  Maybe you can now post a strong leftie rebuttal to awaken the sleeping libertarians. :P But don't engage Svetonio in any discussions. He's inclined to trampling whatever others say. Just read the last ten pages of the "under communism ..." thread.

Mmm.. I'm definitely going in... 

My bad. Fixed.

The T wrote: TeleStrat wrote: 3. Legal and responsible gun ownership is protected by law and rightfully so.        Keeping a firearm in your home for protection is much better than dialing 911 and hoping for the best. I have no problem with keeping a gun at home. I agree it should be legal.  I'm not sure the point of having AK-47s and other assault weapons at home unless paranoia has deeply set in. And really, all these lunatics really think that, if their conspiracies came true and government came after them, would they be able to stop the US ARMED FORCES with a few assault weapons and their sorry excuse ofor militia training?

I agree with you, Teo.

rogerthat wrote: Hmm, that kind of sounds grim.  Hope you are ok.  Nah, debating team is all dormant in spite of the scintillating developments in Greece followed by an even more scintillating anti climax.  It was just me and JJLehto discussing economics with Toaster Mantis chipping in at times for a while, now not even that.  Maybe you can now post a strong leftie rebuttal to awaken the sleeping libertarians. :P

But don't engage Svetonio in any discussions. He's inclined to trampling whatever others say. Just read pp. 2-6 of the "Under communism ..." thread.

Edited by Dayvenkirq - October 20 2015 at 12:11

TeleStrat wrote: 3. Legal and responsible gun ownership is protected by law and rightfully so.        Keeping a firearm in your home for protection is much better than dialing 911 and hoping for the best.

rogerthat wrote: Long time, Theo.  Howdy?

Trying to survive sir. Life changes constantly and not always in expected ways. 

Long time, Teo.  Howdy?

Edited by rogerthat - October 20 2015 at 10:36

Found this while looking for pieces on 'faith',....thought it was interesting.

Edited by dr wu23 - October 20 2015 at 09:03

Dean wrote: Sean Trane wrote: Dean wrote: Erm, it's not my country's history so it's not something I know anything about, I only know what wikipedia tells me, and that is: Kansas was admitted into the Union on the 29th January 1981 as a free-state... their admission as a slave-state was blocked due to questions of legality over its constitution [because of voter-fraud]. But we digress.   proof that one cannot believe everything Wikipedia says...   totally understandable mistake in paraphrasing it... I'm convinced there is 80% chance I would've done it too.  1861 ... damn dyslexia.