Am I becoming a complete asshole?

[Llamas]

Llamas, can I ask what Agnosticism means to you?

That's a seriously loaded question. There are so many types of agnosticism... everyone who doesn't follow a religion or isn't atheist falls in this group. I consider myself an agnostic theist. I believe that at least one sort of god or deity probably exists, but that it's impossible for anyone to know anything about it/them, or if they even truly exist. I generally believe that "knowing" anything in these regards is a waste of time. I'm a strong supporter of doubt. I doubt that everything on earth happened by coincidence... and I doubt that some god just up and created it all from nothing. I relate to Richard in a lot of ways (yes, not only coneman and pilz read your post, man)...

Now, I also believe that it's possible for science to make headway in the future regarding religion, "proving" or "disproving" various things. I don't think that the existence of a deity is necessarily unprovable... just that, as we stand, as of now, there's no way to prove it.

Karin made a very good point that got overlooked, and I made a similar point in the other thread that got overlooked - a vast majority of religious people are not fucking whackjobs. I may not agree with them, and I may not fully always respect their opinions, but most of them are just normal people trying to get by in life. They just view things differently than I do.

I also just re-read my first post. Wanted to clear up that I don't think religious people are all nuts; I generally think their blind beliefs are nuts.

[sKratch]

Physicist here. Late to the party. No matter what you attribute it to, there is an undeniable interaction between mass-wielding matter that can be predicted successfully 100% of the time in classical physics. Maybe it isn't a fundamental force like it was thought to be for quite some time, but there is still something we can call gravity that behaves in the way we have understood it to for hundreds of years.

[Budzy]

Yeah your an asshole.
See? Much easier than writing 12257157152515 word posts.

[Free?]

I'm not convinced you are paying attention. There are certainly differing opinions in this thread. Besides, what does it matter if it is something has been discussed or if it is original or not? We're sharing our opinions on a common subject. This whole fucking forum is dedicated to talking about how awesome the Offspring are and discussing the same shit over and over again.

If you don't talk about common interests and express opinions, there would be no reason for friends.

Then it must be just me that the times when discussing religion was something more than repeating the same old arguments (different or not, they are common knowledge) for a thousandth time passed long ago. Abortion anyone?

This forum indeed has lots of repeating (which sadly is only natural), but it hardly makes a good excuse for another religion thread reincarnation*.
Recycling old themes doesn't make friendship better either.

Do I sound like a complete asshole? I hope not because I know that *there's nothing wrong with coneman sharing his stance* and others sharing their opinions and it looks like participating in this discussion made some of you guys feel better.

Some people feel good about talking about favorite Offspring songs/albums/members etc or ripoffs, or mods, or trolls, or how good were the past days of this bbs and how it all went to shit, or abortion, or religion. It's all good (scratch mods from the list at this point). It just doesn't really work for me. That's why I must stop I guess.

edit: thx 4 the tag :]

[nieh]

Very good timing:

[Paint_It_Black]

But getting together to share common thoughts and beliefs that you only really want reinforced (rather than discussed) is awesome!

Well, yes. There's not really anything wrong with that as long as it doesn't masquerade as anything else. I'm not sure if it's so much about needing to reinforce your own beliefs as it is about just being pleasant to be reminded that you're not alone in your beliefs. I like knowing some people think a bit like me. Not because I need any kind of validation, but because it feels less lonely this way.

Karin made a very good point that got overlooked, and I made a similar point in the other thread that got overlooked - a vast majority of religious people are not fucking whackjobs.

Maybe not to you. To me they are all whackjobs. It's not about how nice they are as people, or how otherwise normal they may appear to be. And it's not about how respectable some religions or belief systems may seem, which is something T was kind of talking about. It's that they all believe in something without proof. They have faith which is fundamentally irrational. They could have the best religion ever promoting nothing but love and compassion and actually live up to the ideals, with each follower being the epitome of what a human should be. And I'd still think they're all whackjobs.

[Harleyquiiinn]

I don't care.

I don't know what that makes me. I cannot say I'm an atheist because when you believe that something doesn't exist, it's already a belief. Agnostic, maybe ? I don't know. I don't even wonder.

Now about religion, I think I am with Wheelchairman. It's easy to only see the problems of religion but it also created a lot of good throughout the years, starting with law and well... what we could call the birth of human rights.

What's bad is extremism. And it doesn't only work for religion [/obvious]

Also, I have the feeling that you guys are angry about your education more than you are about religion. Maybe you are rejecting the whole idea because it was forced into you and you brutally realized there could be another truth... See it's a little bit like horse fucking. If you were fucked by a horse your whole life and suddenly realize that some people aren't, you would probably think "what ??? why do I have to take this giant thing inside me ???" and just leave the horse where it is but maybe someone who didn't grow up with horsefucking like Anal_guy for example, wouldn't completely reject the idea.

[mrconeman]

Richard touched on what I was going to write another long post about, but he summed it up nicely. It is *not* the values of Religion and Religious people I have a problem with, as you'd literally have to be some kind of sadist, because pretty much all Religions are based around the same old message, love, togetherness, respect etc in some form or another, not that it's ever carried out, but thats a whole other thread.

I think Religious people are fucking nutjobs, because they believe in a deity (different ones for different Religions obviously) that just isn't there. They put their faith in something that doesn't exist, and they can't prove it to exist, there is nothing *at all* that has ever been discovered anywhere, that points to the existence of a God being a real thing, and these people base their very life on it. Yet there is a plethora of Scientific evidence, that I would like to stress does *not* completely disprove God, but has disproved time and again things that tie in with a belief in God.

Religion, has obviously stemmed from mans fear of the unknown, look back in time, anything our race could not understand during it's own time, was credited to Gods, or aliens, which is totally understandable, I understand the human brains need to know everything, and fear of the unknown. So when we don't have the ability to explain something, it becomes devine intervention. We need to accept as a race that we *do not fucking have all the answers*

[Rooster]

edit: thx 4 the tag :]

Don't mention it. You gave me the idea, so i gotta give you some credit for it


So, as Harley said, atheism itself is a belief. Almost like religion. And in that aspect it's apretty big religion. Whatever you may call it, i'm still an atheist. There could be some intelligent force in some unknown dimension that started everything. But i don't find believing it all started by some lucky coincidence or something that hard. After all, all religions were started by us, humans. God is something that as yet can't be proven. While there is a possibility he/she/they exist, at least in some form, i don't believe in it.


Who knows, maybe one day we'll discover a flying delorean tucked away on some random and yet unknown planet, in a layer of 13 billion years old rocks, and we'll find out everything's just a big time paradox. Maybe a mad scientist travelled 13 billion years back in time with a bucket of gasoline and a firecracker...

[Harleyquiiinn]

By the way Raptor, you owe me a beer.

I read your whole message and I see a problem with it. See, you seem to think that a maybe existing God would think like a human. The way I understood it, God is more of an entity. I believe that in the Islam, it is a sin to personify Allah. But I got it, you were talking about Christianity and they tend to personify God.

Still, you owe me a beer.