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Atheism
Atheism is the disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
1,002 Questions
Is it ok to question or reject your parent's religion?
of course! if their really strict, then you might want to break it to them slowly, but you have every right to question/reject their religion. you can believe in what you want to believe in. the right to your own religion is on the bill of rights or constitution somewhere.
-the person who answered your question
How can so many people in the world be convinced of an invisible deity?
"Communal reinforcement "goes a long way to explain it. It's a process by which an unsupported claim becomes a strong belief, through being repeated by members of a community. This process is separate from whether the claim has any validity, has been properly researched, or is supported by empirical data significant enough to warrant belief by REASONABLE PEOPLE. This explains many many things but also how religious beliefs are passed on in communities from generation to generation. Consequently, Christians beget Christians, Hindus beget Hindus, Muslims beget Muslims. You don't get Christians with Muslim children or vice versa. This is why human beings believe a book, written a few thousand years ago by men who thought a lightning bolt was an angry God, and that a person suffering an epileptic fit had the devil inside them, is both wise and true. This is why other religious people elsewhere in the world believing just as strongly in their book flew planes into two very large buildings.
Who was the founder of atheism?
Atheism is as old as mankind itself.
everyone is born an Atheist and that man chooses a real religion
no body found it
What does being an atheist mean?
The dictionary of Atheist is:
A (without) + theism (belief in god) = atheism
There are also several kinds of atheism.
Atheist: I do not believe in god.
Agnostic atheist: I accept that gods cannot be proven or disproven but I personally do not believe a god exists.
Gnostic atheist: I KNOW there is no god
What being an atheist means to you and your life:
- You can't fall back on all the religious reasoning (e.g. It must means something! I hope I can be delivered from this pain! Help me god!)
- There is no reward for your good woks except your good works
- You don't have to pay for a priesthood to blame it all on you
- No miracles
- No welcoming community of religious people to comfort you
- Your dead friends, parents and dogs are really gone - forever
- Many people hate you, mistrust you and fear you.
- Endless conversion attempts by theist acquaintances
- You have to live by your moral values not someone else's
How do you solve an equation with two variables?
By substitution or elimination of one of the variables which usually involves simultaneous or straight line equations.
An atheist doesn't believe in the existence of a God and or Gods. They simply live life based on facts. All other beliefs (aliens, political party preference, position on eating meat etc.) are up to the individual as there is no atheist code, rules, book of instructions or even secret handshake.
Are there any atheist politicians?
There are many; in the UK one the main parties is led by an atheist. Doubtless there have been others - Winston Churchill was not religious and described himself as agnostic.
Across the world there must be many - even some who find it convenient to seem to belong to a religion.
There is debate as to whether or not Abraham Lincoln was an atheist: he certainly wasn't a Christian, and he never claimed to follow any other religion.
How can an Atheist be spiritual?
An atheist can be spiritual but not religious, sounds like splitting hairs, but being atheist I like it better.
To add to that: To an atheist, the feeling of spirituality must come from the human mind, not from a supernatural source. Therefore an atheist can have a sense of the numinous or transcendent without ever needing gods, spirits or religious intermediaries. Some atheists (including Sam Harris) actually practice elements of certain religions to connect with this feeling and to learn about the mind & brain. This is not a concession that the claims of that religion are objectively true.
To splurge means to make an indulgent purchase that is usually expensive. For example, people splurge on gifts for themselves on their birthdays.
Why is the bible uncompromisingly ambiguous when it is the perfect word of god?
Because it is a story of fiction. The Old Testament is a collection of the myths and legends of the Hebrew people. Most myths and legends are ambiguous at best.
The New Testament concerns the folklore arising around a prophet in the early First Century AD. Many of the stories are very similar to other myths and legends which were current at the time.
So it is hardly surprising that it is ambiguous and contradictory, even though the books which make up the Bible were selected very carefully, and all conflicting texts destroyed.
A more interesting question to me is why anyone can claim it is perfect. Most Christians don't claim this: especially if they have read it.
What philosophy do most atheists adhere to?
If by "most atheists", you are referring to the entire world, the population of atheists in China dwarfs the rest of the world's atheist population. Most Chinese Atheists adhere to a combination of Confucian and Materialistic philosophical principles.
If by "most atheists", you are referring to Western Atheists, such as those in Europe and Anglo-America, these Atheists adhere to Rationalist Skepticism or Humanism as philosophical principles.
Did man create god in his own image?
The character "God" Is a wellknown character from the story The Holy Bible.
God is only a character in a book and has no image and is not real. However in the story humans are proclaimed to be made in his image. So, yes. God is made in mans image.
AnswerActually Yes. It's man who created god in his image. If cattles are the dominating intelligent beings on Earth, then their gods will be in the form of Bulls and Cows. AnswerIf so, then god doesn't look too great. His eyes are wired back to front, giving him a blind spot, he has an appendix whose only job is to kill him at random, and there's lots of other stuff that can go wrong too easily as well. (see link on functions of appendix 1)it produces foetal hormones 2)it contains immune cells 3)it provides a reservoir of normal gut microbes incase of infection)Also, where does that leave women? Are they made in god's image? Then god looks even wierder.
When you start digging into the question, it just gets sillier and sillier, and you have to go through more and more logical hoops to try and get that statement to work.
A much simpler statement, which requires no illogical followups would be: "Actually, didn't humankind evolve the same way we know all the other animals evolved?" To which the answer would be: almost certainly, yes - the evidence is overwhelming.
The saying is "if atheism is a religion then not playing baseball is a sport"
A religion has two components which must both be present. It is a formalized system of ritual and belief. It is focussed on a supernatural being or beings.
Speaking to "formalized system of ritual and belief", atheists are not an organization, just a number of folks that have independently, through thought and study, come to the conclusion that there is no supernatural force in the universe. There is no credo, instruction manual, or anything.
AnswerThe first poster was entirely correct. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. No more, no less. One cannot be atheist and religious. One is the absense of the other. The baseball analogy is spot on. But many religious people still claim that atheism is a religion and that it is based on faith. This is, quite simply, untrue. AnswerAlthough Atheism is described in a variety of ways that often depend on the views of the describer, an Atheist is a person from whose life a belief in the supernatural (God) is absent. There is no denial of, no failure to recognize and no denouncing of the supernatural contained within the term Atheist. At its most basic level Atheism is the absence of belief in the supernatural.
Belief is the acceptance of the truth or actuality of anything without certain proof. Belief is a mental conviction. To believe is to accept something as true or real. It is to accept the truth, existence, value, worth, etc, of something: to believe in freedom. It can denote strong emotional feelings such as "to believe" in a friend's innocence. One of the primary meanings of "to believe" is to have religious faith. Religious faith is belief in the supernatural (God).
The "belief" that Atheism should be classified as a belief is a view taken by religionists who cannot accept the simple absence of belief. The absence of belief is a benign, non-active status. There is no "belief system" involved. There is no "system" of Atheistic belief: no rituals, no practices, no rules, no set of doctrines or dogma. Although there are various philosophical opinions among people who can be described as Atheists, a conviction that there are no gods is not the primary characteristic. In it's elemental form, Atheism does not concern itself with gods.
As stated above, Atheism is simply the absence of religious belief. It is certainly not a "faith" which is unquestioning belief that doesn't require proof. That claim is part of a persistence to classify atheism as a religion- it is not.
Why do some Atheists have problems with Catholicism?
Answer
Probably because they've suffered from unjust or corrupt doings at the church, or simply because they feel it's wrong. There's also the issues that Catholics notoriously have with homosexuals and how they're supposedly going to burn in hell. It may be different from person to person, or it could simply be the same reasons some Jews have problems with some Christians: they're different.
Because the Catholic Church is corrupt. They say things like "condoms spread AIDS", they continue to promote "abstinence-only" education despite its poor track record (i.e. places where it's taught have higher rates of STD and teen pregnancy), they cover up molestation and spend millions of donated dollars to move around priests to keep them from getting prosecuted.
Answer
Most atheists don't have any problem with Catholicism or any other religion. Atheists are not concerned with religion. They don't obsess about religion. They don't spend time thinking about religion for the most part. However, the Catholic Church has historically treated atheism with revulsion and contempt and treated atheists as less than human. Atheists are reviled in most Catholic settings. However, atheists expend much less effort in reciprocal feelings. In fact, the amount of questions such as this asked at WikiAnswers show that religious people think much more about atheists than atheists think about them.
How many people believe in the invisible pink unicorn?
Probably no-one. It is put forward as an argument against gods since it is just as reasonable to believe in an invisible pink unicorn as it is to believe in gods, you can't prove either one.
Why did he communist party atheism?
There are a couple of reasons; Karl Marx was an atheist and expressed this in his work. This obviously would influence "Marxist" thinkers.
More practically, the Church in communist states would have been seen as "competition" to the government.
Is it okay not to sing hymns at a grandparent's funeral if you're an atheist?
It might be thought slightly insensitive to not sing a hymn at a funeral; why not treat it as singing any other song, it probably doesn't apply to you, but you can sing it any way.
This is not an atheistic question, however being unhandy means you are not mechanically inclined or able to fix things.
What does stretched tightly mean?
It means your money spending budget is at risk, or stretched tightly. It could lead to overspending and not being able to cover your bills.
Not sure what you mean by a fair war but it seem like you are talking about a justified war, which i a war of defense. If your country was invaded you would be justified in using military force to real your attackers
What is the definition of people who need to see proof of God's existence?
Another answer from our community:
People who needs to see the proof of God existence are people who lack understanding. The proof of God existence is written in Romans 1:20 "For the invisible things ofHIM from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even HIS eternal power and Godhead;......."
Who gave you your name- your father or mother?
Most likely your mother because she makes most choices for and about you.
How did the scholar Erasmus represent northern humanism?
in the ways of belliving in religious action. remember the north was were they were more intrested on religion
