₦airaland Forum

KingEbukasBlog:
FSM is a satire of creationism . Please dont make me laugh

I am laughing already by giving it as much weight as Raëlianism.

JackBizzle:
But bro, why are you asking for the definition of atheism?

Trying to clarify for understanding. Someone claims atheists believe a creator exists but don't accept it is a god. While I claim atheists don't believe in the existence of any supernatural being including a creator.

I might have explained the person's position wrongly. Still trying to understand so, bear please if I am corrected here.

KingEbukasBlog:
That's not true . Atheists in Raelism accept there is a creator of life - aliens .

The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism.

KingEbukasBlog:
He does not deify the creator of the universe who we call God but he acknowledges His existence , he does not deify Christ or anything and that makes him an atheist . There are Christian atheists

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

Very obvious you know very little about atheism . Be humble and don't pontificate

The following are quoted from the link you provided. Nowhere is existence of God acknowledged. They point to a lack of existence.

Christian atheism is a form of Cultural Christianity and a system of ethics which draws its beliefs and practices from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospels of the New Testament and other sources, while rejecting the supernatural claims of Christianity at large.

The assertion of the unreality of God

According to Paul van Buren, a Death of God theologian, the word God itself is "either meaningless or misleading".

The inference from these claims to the "either meaningless or misleading" conclusion is implicitly premised on the verificationist theory of meaning. Most Christian atheists believe that God never existed, but there are a few who believe in the death of God literally.

This is part of the reason why they see the existence of God as counter-progressive. Altizer wrote of God as the enemy to man because mankind could never reach its fullest potential while God existed.[4] He went on to state that "to cling to the Christian God in our time is to evade the human situation of our century and to renounce the inevitable suffering which is its lot".[4]

Some follow the tradition of “Christian non-realism,” most famously expounded in the UK by Don Cupitt in the 1980s, which holds that God is a symbol or metaphor and that religious language is not matched by a transcendent reality.

A minister of the PKN, Klaas Hendrikse has described God as "a word for experience, or human experience" and said that Jesus may have never existed.

Hendrikse gained attention with his book published in November 2007, in which he said that it was not necessary to believe in God's existence in order to believe in 'God'. The Dutch title of the book translates as, 'Believing in a God who does not exist: manifesto of an atheist pastor'.

Catholic atheism is a belief in which the culture, traditions, rituals, and norms of Catholicism are accepted, but the existence of God is rejected.

Proudgorgeousga:
your post agrees with ebukas definition

Care to elaborate please? Perhaps you can open my eyes.

KingEbukasBlog:
The acknowledgement of the existence of a cosmic designer comes from an understanding of logic, science , deep observation of nature , moral values and duties , mathematics , intentional states of consciousness etc . If you contravene this , challenge me to a debate - open a thread , just two of us and prove your atheism to be true .

Logic does not prove the existence of a designer! Neither does science, nor any observation of nature, or moral values and duties, mathematics, or consciousness. Believers take a leap of faith and insert a designer. They have not proven one actually exists. And atheist don't accept one exists.

To be honest, I don't know what the terms of future argument would be. If you do, please let me know. I will consider. I am not out to convince you and I'm willing to accept what atheism means to you. At the very least, you know what I mean when I use the word and that's good enough for me.

budaatum:
How do you define atheism?

What do you mean when you claim you are an atheist?

As an atheist, do you accept that there is a creator of the universe?

The religious background of most people defines their language. You would hence hear theists claim a belief in god, or atheists claim a lack of belief in gods. What an insult to the gods that you human beings subject them to your arbitrary held beliefs. If anything, does this not prove they are constructs of your minds?

I find this funny, though acceptable. If I were in a room with no windows and know not what is going on outside the room, it is possible to say, "I believe it is raining", but I can step outside the room and check to see if it is raining or not, and if it is raining and pissing down on my head, I won't just believe it is raining, I'll know it is raining! Unless I wish to delude myself of course, in which case I can claim all sorts of things - an alien from the planet Zog is washing its phandikons after devouring a upigathon, for instance. But, I'll know I'm deluded. Unless I've lost the use of my faculties, in which case I'm just mad, to which I expect a wide berth to be taken. I have stepped out the room regarding religion and deification and it pissed on my head and I don't do phandikons!

I am an atheist. I do not believe gods, spirits, angels, aliens, creators etc, exist or do not exist; I know that they do not exist. They are constructs, pretty good constructs at that, of humans, to explain the things we perceive. It stems from the desire to explain or find reasons for things. We just can't say, "we don't know" how certain things came into existence, so we come up with the best explanations we can within the limits of our existential time. This is the beginning of science in its most primitive form.

The first scientific claim in Judaism is that God created the Heavens and the Earth. The Jews saw all that existed and could not fathom existence without a creator, so they imagined one. They didn't do this in isolation. They got ideas from surrounding tribes and made up their own. The bible shows how unsure they were in the early books of Genesis, with God creating in one way, and another in the very next chapter. A critical look at the text has even allowed some to dispute which god did the creating! It was a great observation for its time, but some societies knew better, even at the time the Jews were coming up with their observations. But you try giving the works of Plato to people and see how many get through the first book. Some have though, and they teach ot to others. We call them pastors, albeit a one eyed pastor teaching the blind. In Buddhism, the Bodhisattva remains on earth cultivating supreme moral and spiritual perfection to be placed in the service of others. He brings them to realisation.

Knowledge of the process of development, or evolution, of Judaic Thought is what some great nations have built on to become what they are today. At one point they claimed the earth was flat, it was created on October 23, 4004 BC and God done it. But such beliefs have today been abandoned by many, and continuing to believe (as opposed to understandimg, or comprehending) what ancient Jews wrote is purely a misunderstanding, and a non acceptance of subsequent knowledge. Even the Jews don't believe their own myths anymore, so, to me, it is absurd that anyone does. However, I understand how people can believe these myths and know it is important that people know about these ancient believes. Someday understanding of them would come about, and believing would be abandoned.

One day it would be understood that gods exist because human beings have deified things into gods. Its a pretty neat trick, one that more developed nations use to further develop their nations. As is written in the book of John, "In the beginning was the word". We Nigerians would one day learn to use the power of the word. Just imagine, the immense work required to electrify Nigeria! Let there be light, would be the words that would be uttered, and there would never be a power cut in Nigeria ever again!

[quote author=KingEbukasBlog post=61373462][/quote]Pity you had to butt in.

KingEbukasBlog:
That's not true . Atheists in Raelism accept there is a creator of life - aliens . You made a post that showed you that Confucians venerate spirits of their ancestors and that Confucians are atheists since Confucianism does not involve the worship of a deity . Atheists in Unitarian Universalism seek spiritual growth - they believe man has a spirit which needs growth .

Han folk religion is a non-theistic religion and they venerate spirits . There are atheists in Wicca practicing witchcraft and in Chaos Magic .


The pantheist sees the universe as a deity ; the ancient Chinese , Japanese , and Egyptians deified their rulers ; so you are saying atheists do not accept that the universe exists and aforementioned ancient people never had rulers

For the last time , atheism is the rejection of deification . There is no way around this .

My post did not claim Confusianists are atheists! Those who worship spirits are not atheists! Alien worshippers are not atheists!

You seem to want to define atheism your way. By your definition, a Sango worshipper can be an atheist. Most people would disagree.

Atheisms is a lack of belief in the existence of things theistic or anything else of the sort (aliens, spirits, angels, etc) that goes along with it. If one believes in the existence of anything of this sort, their atheism is questionable.

For your information, I know a Christian who claims to be an atheist. He loves the teachings of Christ and his Bible but he is not a believer, not even in Christ having lived. As he says, quoting from Porgee Bess, "The things you are likely to read in the Bible are not necessarily so".

Thanks for your time.

KingEbukasBlog:
I don't think you read my posts at all . I asked you this question : The pantheist sees the universe as a deity ; the ancient Chinese , Japanese , and Egyptians deified their rulers ; so you are saying atheists do not accept that the universe exists and aforementioned ancient people never had rulers since they are deities to these people ?

I don't think you read my posts!

The atheist will not take the position that the pantheist takes. Nor would they adopt that of the ancient Chinese, Japanese, or Egyptians. The atheist will say they are mistaken, that what they call deities are mere human beings or something else if it is based on an existing thing, and not that those things don't exist. But as far as God, ie Yahweh is concerned, or angels etc, the atheist will categorically say they do not exist and are a figment of the imagination of those who say they do. The atheist would claim anything that is deified is deified in error.

Please do not accuse me of not reading your responses to my posts. It implies I have no regard for your effort and that I am rude, and it is insulting. I am sure you are way more intelligent than to waste your valuable time with a person who doesn't even bother reading responses to their posts.

Seems there are many definitions of atheism, so I am seeking clarification. Answer the questions below please. Hopefully, the non-atheists will hold themselves in check until some clarity appears.

Please note, I am aware questions 1 and 2 may mean the same thing to some. You do not have to state how the world came into existence.

If you respond to any comments not relevant to the topic at hand, or derail this thread in anyway or form, thunder thunder thunder!


How do you define atheism?

What do you mean when you claim you are an atheist?

As an atheist, do you accept that there is a creator of the universe?

KingEbukasBlog:
That's not true . Atheists in Raelism accept there is a creator of life - aliens . You made a post that showed you that Confucians venerate spirits of their ancestors and that Confucians are atheists since Confucianism does not involve the worship of a deity . Atheists in Unitarian Universalism seek spiritual growth - they believe man has a spirit which needs growth .

Han folk religion is a non-theistic religion and they venerate spirits . There are atheists in Wicca practicing witchcraft and in Chaos Magic .


The pantheist sees the universe as a deity ; the ancient Chinese , Japanese , and Egyptians deified their rulers ; so you are saying atheists do not accept that the universe exists and aforementioned ancient people never had rulers

For the last time , atheism is the rejection of deification . There is no way around this .

I see we still have work to do on definitions! Would you accept atheism to mean the rejection of deities?

KingEbukasBlog:
Islam is growing rapidly in Europe while Christianity is declining in only few parts of Europe but is growing rapidly in Asia , Africa and some parts of South America . You focused on Christianity and totally forgot Islam and other religions that are springing up especially in countries like Iceland . Islam is expected to double the number of adherents by 2050 , that's how fast they are growing


And for atheists , its a sorry state . Read what I told Felix :

As at 1970 when countries with high populations like China , North Korea , Soviet Union were ruled by atheists , the population of the world was at 3.7 billion with close to 170 million atheists .

Fast forward , the population of the world has doubled (numbers in billion ) and the number of atheists fell massively and was at 136 million after 40 years (2010) .


Do you see how bad it is ? This is beyond egregious !

Isn't it funny how we are just about saying the same thing? Religious people are increasing on the whole. Islam is growing in Europe, definitely, due to immigration and higher birth rates. Christianity is decreasing though. It used to be the case in England that one was fined for not attending church, but today, many are relatively empty on Sunday. That said, Pentecostal Churches are growing in number and are now everywhere.

The reverse is however happening in China, to name one country. Christianity was banned for years, but liberalisation is allowing it to grow, and since there are lots of people in China, a small percentage growth is significant.

Besides, atheism is not exactly for the faint hearted. Who wouldn't like there to be a God watching over and protecting them in this harsh brutal world?

I'm going to bed. Have a good night now.

rekinomtla:
Nothing infuriates the atheists more than God. In fact the vast majority of atheists hated and blamed God for the tragic events in the their life when they were theists. I've even heard atheists confess this.

That may well be the case, but a rational person cannot hate and blame a God they claim does not exist for the tragic events in their life. At best, such a person is illogical.

I have met a lot of religious people, Christians and Muslims, who go to a babalawo. While they may claim they are Muslims or Christians, some Christians and Muslims would claim they are not quite so, at the very least.

Now, if we've agreed definitions, back to the topic of the thread.

Religion is growing in certain parts of the world. That's a fact. It is also declining in other parts. It is declining in Europe, and definitely in UK where church attendance has declined so much that the actual buildings are being sold off. As I said though, it is my view that on the whole people who adopt a religion are growing faster than atheists.

I'm sure we agree on that.

KingEbukasBlog:
Understand this : there are no gods to an atheist because no entity- abstract or concrete- is being elevated to a divine status (deity, deification) . So the atheist lacks the belief in deities simply because he is godless or without a deity (atheos) , nothing is a god or deity to an atheist . Simple .

There is no way around this . It is what it is .

Finally, spot on. I agree. And add, the atheist also does not accept that there is a creator, a deity or spiritual beings.

KingEbukasBlog:
Or spiritual beings ? The atheists who are in non theistic religions - the Confucians , adherents of Han folk religion , the Buddhists - actually acknowledge the existence of spiritual beings .Materialism is not atheism . The latter part of this "definition" is materialism .

Buddhism is a path of practice and spiritual development leading to Insight into the true nature of reality. Buddhist practices like meditation are means of changing yourself in order to develop the qualities of awareness, kindness, and wisdom.

Because Buddhism does not include the idea of worshipping a creator god, some people do not see it as a religion in the normal, Western sense.

Confucianism, is a religion of optimistic humanism, Confucianism deals primarily with moral conduct and ethical living and is often categorized as an ethical system, rather than a religion. It emphasizes the earthly, not the heavenly.
It emphasizes the earthly, not the heavenly. The doctrines of Confucianism center upon:

1. Ancestor worship – veneration of the deceased ancestors whose spirits are believed to control the fortunes of the descendants.
2. Filial piety – devotion and obedience to and reverence of the elders of the family by the younger members.

It does not include the belief in the existence of a creator

Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions.

None of them adopt the worship or existence of a deity! But if you won't take my word for it, shall we ask the atheists if they accept that there is a creator?

KingEbukasBlog:
Rejecting the existence of a creator of the universe isn't atheism , so pointing this out is irrelevant . I'm working with facts , not hearsay or empty wishful thinking .

Do any of those definitions agree with this in your view?

KingEbukasBlog:
Many atheists in the world are very ignorant . I've discussed atheism with say close to 500 atheists on various social media platforms in like 4 years and I can tell you , some of them claim they are atheists because they reject the bible or religion . Its pretty funny right .

They may well be ignorant. But least define their beliefs or views properly!

KingEbukasBlog:
Rejecting the existence of a creator of the universe isn't atheism , so pointing this out is irrelevant . I'm working with facts , not hearsay or empty wishful thinking .

What facts? Show me! I've posted some facts below just so you desist from accusing me of thinking wishfully or hearsay (though, hmm, well).

Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is the rejection of belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists. Wiki


Atheism is the absence of belief in any Gods or spiritual beings. The word Atheism comes from a, meaning without, and theism meaning belief in god or gods.

Atheists don't use God to explain the existence of the universe.
Atheists say that human beings can devise suitable moral codes to live by without the aid of Gods or scriptures. BBC


Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods.

Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods. American Atheist

My point however is to show that there are lots of reports pointing either way. If you asked me, my view is that more people will be religious than atheist.

But my opinion is irrelevant here as I have no way of knowing what the future holds regarding this topic.

KingEbukasBlog:
Yeah , atheism rejects deification not the existence of God . Those atheists you talked about believe that God exists but not really of a divine nature or status like we theists project them It to be .

To be very specific , your friend is a misotheist - someone who hates God - not an atheist .

You tried this in another thread, and atheists themselves, people who know what atheism is to them, informed you that some atheist, quite a lot of them actually, reject the existence of God, and deification in general! Are you ignoring that fact?

500 UK Churches Closed While 423 Mosques Were Built on 'Sad Ruins of English Christianity': Report

An international think tank warned in a report that multiculturalism is feeding radical Islam in the U.K., pointing out that in the past couple of decades close to 500 Christian churches have closed in London alone while 423 mosques were built.

"British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Above all, Londonistan, with its new 423 mosques, is built on the sad ruins of English Christianity," the Gatestone Institute argued in a report released Sunday.

It pointed out that since 2001, as many as 500 churches in London of all denominations have been turned into private homes. At the same time, the number of Muslims has grown by almost a million.

Statistics from the NatCen Social Research Institute showed that between 2012 and 2014, the number of Britons identifying as Anglicans fell from 21 to 17 percent of the population, representing a decrease of 1.7 million people. Data from British Social Attitudes surveys also showed that those without a religion in England and Wales now outnumber Christians.

The Christian Post Company

Talking about Christianity could just put people off – Church of England signals

The Church of England is set to signal to members that speaking openly about their faith could do more harm than good when it comes to spreading Christianity.

Stark new research findings being presented to members of the Church’s ruling General Synod suggest that practising Christians who talk to friends and colleagues about their beliefs are three times as likely to put them off God as to attract them.

The study commissioned privately by the Church of England and a coalition of other Christian groups also found that four in 10 British adults did not even think that Jesus was “real person who actually lived”.

Meanwhile a third of those surveyed said they were not aware of anyone they know being a practising Christian.

The Bishop of Bristol, the Rt Rev Michael Hill, admitted the findings had been “greeted with disbelief” but warned members of the Synod not to dismiss them because they did not fit with their “preconceptions” about the public.

The Church’s most senior lay official, the Synod's Secretary General William Fittall, added that some forms of outreach by Christians hoping to win new converts should be recognised as “counterproductive”.

The findings, which present one of the gloomiest pictures ever about the state of Christianity in Britain, were sent out to almost 470 members of the Synod, which is due to discuss how to tackle the crisis in the pews when it meets in London next month.

The study, called “Talking Jesus”, was commissioned jointly by the Church of England, the Evangelical Alliance and “Hope” an umbrella body which brings local churches together in different areas, in an attempt to arrest the decline in attendances.

It suggests that British society is polarised about Christian beliefs.

Overall 43 per cent of those surveyed said they believed in the resurrection – although more than half of those said they did not take the Biblical accounts literally.

Yet only 60 per cent believed that Jesus even existed with 22 per cent describing him as a “mythical or fictional character” and another 18 per cent unsure. Among under-35s the proportion viewing Jesus as a fictional character rises to 25 per cent.

Telegraph

The World's Newest Major Religion: No Religion

You don’t usually think of churches as going out of business, but it happens. In March, driven by parishioner deaths and lack of interest, the U.K. Mennonites held their last collective service.

It might seem easy to predict that plain-dressing Anabaptists—who follow a faith related to the Amish—would become irrelevant in the age of smartphones, but this is part of a larger trend. Around the world, when asked about their feelings on religion, more and more people are responding with a meh.

The religiously unaffiliated, called "nones," are growing significantly. They’re the second largest religious group in North America and most of Europe. In the United States, nones make up almost a quarter of the population. In the past decade, U.S. nones have overtaken Catholics, mainline protestants, and all followers of non-Christian faiths.

There have long been predictions that religion would fade from relevancy as the world modernizes, but all the recent surveys are finding that it’s happening startlingly fast. France will have a majority secular population soon. So will the Netherlands and New Zealand. The United Kingdom and Australia will soon lose Christian majorities. Religion is rapidly becoming less important than it’s ever been, even to people who live in countries where faith has affected everything from rulers to borders to architecture.

National Geographic Society

hopefulLandlord:
I was poking fun at the post you quoted

Oh, my bad. I felt I was being poked but didn't have sufficient evidence to believe it. Now I do!

(Some people just can't take silly threads serious! Must be the atheist in them.)

Originakalokalo:
It could be any number of years.

I don't know.

Science has been wrong on a lot of things/ issues.

There was a time, Dalton atomic theory was in place.

Now, it has been proven not to be entirely correct.

If a theory on atoms can be wrong, then

Science cannot have explanations for everything.

That's true, though, I wouldn't say science, per se, but scientists, as in human beings behind the science.

Makes me wonder, is there any source for the explanations for everything?

Originakalokalo:
The 6000 years was compiled from the dates given in the Bible. From Adam.

First day of Creation to the sixth could have been many years.

A thousand years is like a day before God.

That six days could have been any number of years.

Like billions of years, right?

hopefulLandlord:
didn't big bang speak to you recently? tell us what it said to you

the question no be here

It did? Spoke to me personally? I must be deaf or something. Or maybe it spoke in tongues.

I assumed a big bang is a bang that is big, like a huge firecracker but bigger. And I thought they said it happened billions of years ago, when God said "Let there be light".

Did it talk? Did it talk to you? What didit say please?

Babatunde360:
Do you even know what the big bang says

Bang, now!

(Is this a trick question )

OLAADEGBU:
"For the Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

"Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6).

Jesus is the Way to God, the Truth of God and the Life in God.

Ok

OLAADEGBU:
Jesus is the truth personified.

A non-statement, at best.