Thread: Gallup Poll: 4 in 10 believe man created by God 10,000 years ago

Originally Posted by xman

-1

I am an atheist. I firmly and strictly adhere to the belief that your beliefs are false IF they cannot or will not be shown.

Something is not necissarily false if it cannot be shown. For example, the beleif that a god exists is not false. It cannot be shown that god exists, but the opposite is also true. You can disagree with the beleif of the existance of a god, but based on what we know / don't know today, under no circumstance can it be said that the beleif of the existance of a god is false.

And you definitely cannot say that a beleif is false if it will not be shown, because it's impossible to predict what will and won't be shown in the future.

You know the old saying-"if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to see it did it fall"?

Do you think other animals believe in some supreme being or is it just us? If we could really communicate with a Chimp for instance what do you think they would say about this? Would their answer have implications?

Think about it.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

You know the old saying-"if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to see it did it fall"?

Do you think other animals believe in some supreme being or is it just us? If we could really communicate with a Chimp for instance what do you think they would say about this? Would their answer have implications?

Think about it.

This is hypothetical of course but surely Chimps would think that the higher power is Chimp. And surely they would also think that they are on the top ladder of the evolution.

*So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish*

Originally Posted by Utopian

BTW, when I wrote "your beliefs," I was directing it at a Christian.

Yes, I took that meaning.

Originally Posted by Kingfish

Fundamentalist is not a belief, but a state of mind. Take the religous belief away from a fundamentalist Christian, Jew or Muslim and you would still have a person who thinks fundamentally. Even though they have no particular belief or the belief in non believing, in the case of agnostics and atheists, they really can't change their cognitive maturity level.
Fundamentalist meaning they are concrete thinkers and not capable of abstract thought.

This is simply incorrect. There are no fundamentals of atheism, no dogma, no book, no anointed bishops, etc. As mentioned, an atheist may be fervent, passionate, even unyielding, but 'fundamentalist' is attributing a quality which is technically absent. At best it may be metaphorical.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Do you think other animals believe in some supreme being or is it just us? If we could really communicate with a Chimp for instance what do you think they would say about this? Would their answer have implications?

Think about it.

I quite imagine, if they had a need for such abstraction which I bet they don't, that they would see us as some kind of gods. Mostly I think they view us as curious, industrious, complicated and dangerous animals.

Originally Posted by xman

There are no fundamentals of atheism, no dogma, no book, no anointed bishops, etc.

A lot of Atheists are starting to "worship" the flying spaghetti monster...

I'm surprised no one brought up the flying spaghetti monster or pastafarianism within these pages, especially since the thread started talking about people wanting creatioanism to be tought as science... It's exactly what started pastafarianism in 2005, which is gaining hugely in popularity among atheists.

Originally Posted by xman

This is simply incorrect. There are no fundamentals of atheism, no dogma, no book, no anointed bishops, etc. As mentioned, an atheist may be fervent, passionate, even unyielding, but 'fundamentalist' is attributing a quality which is technically absent. At best it may be metaphorical.

Actually.....do the fundamentals have to be widely agreed upon? I don't see any reason why they should be.

If some man started a one-man-church he could still be a fundamentalist even though his ideas wouldn't be widely agreed upon. I think it could be the same for any atheist. If any person would cling to any belief in the face of evidence proving that his beliefs are false I think he'd be a fundamentalist.

And NO, NYCshaver, I'm NOT getting into that discussion, I'm talking about fundamentalism as a state of mind, not about whether religions are or can be true.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

If some man started a one-man-church he could still be a fundamentalist even though his ideas wouldn't be widely agreed upon. I think it could be the same for any atheist.

If an atheist started a church of any kind, they would suddenly no longer be an atheist.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

If any person would cling to any belief in the face of evidence proving that his beliefs are false I think he'd be a fundamentalist.

You may think what you like, but you'd be misdefining it. that person might be a fool and a damned stubborn one at that, but without fundaments ... well, it wouldn't sit right.

It would be incorrect to refer to 'Passionate' or even 'Militant' Atheists as 'Fundamentalist'. The reality is that an Atheist, no matter how whole heartedly he or she may believe in evolution, would readily change their position if presented with the evidence to denounce it. Nothing will change the position of a fundamentalist.

This thread is going no where.



We're just repeating what we already said by using different words.

Originally Posted by xman

If an atheist started a church of any kind, they would suddenly no longer be an atheist.


You may think what you like, but you'd be misdefining it. that person might be a fool and a damned stubborn one at that, but without fundaments ... well, it wouldn't sit right.

Claiming that there are no fundamentals can be a fundamental....

And I wasn't talking about an atheist starting a church. I was talking about your definition of fundamentals. Where you claimed that fundamentals have to be written down or agreed upon by a large group. I don't think this is true.

Even those who claim they have no beliefs have at least the belief that they have no beliefs.

Humans always make up fundamentals, it's how we percieve the world. We make up generic rules and adapt those when needed.

Someone who isn't able to adapt his rules in order to deal with the evidence presented is a fundamentalist. (And yes, a fool.) And there's nothing to say that he can't be an atheist.

Fundamentals can be as basic as "America is the best country in the world in all fields".

There are people that believe this regardless of evidence and that would make them fundamentalists.