How do you identify yourself spiritually? (Please comment if you choose Other.)
Agnosticism is about whether you believe you can prove the existence of God or not. Atheism and Theism is about actual belief in God.
One can be an Agnostic Atheist or Agnostic Theist. Agnostic atheist= I don't know whether we can prove God exists but I don't believe in God
Agnostic theist= I don't know where we can prove the God exists or not but I do believe in God.
Being an agnostic is not the "I'm not really sure" category people have made it to be.
Agnosticism is not about being uncertain, it's the position that the answer is unknowable or unknown - which is much stronger than merely being uncertain.
It would be better to ask, "Does a deity feature amongst your considerations when making a decision?"
I take it that's what people are mainly interested in anyway.
If this question was asked alongside the others in these questionnaires I think you'd see a high percentage of non-atheist responders agreeing.
Agnosticism has the greek root "gnosis", which means "knowledge". It's technically defined as a view that some things ("God" being a common, but not sole example) are unknowable. It's an epistemological concept.
Theism has the greek root "theos", meaning "God". Its primary concern is with the actual existence of God, so it's an ontological concept.
It's possible to think of agnosticism as side-stepping the theism debate by saying, "the nature of knowing matters more to me than the nature of being," but they're definitely compatible. You can say that the existence of God is unknowable (agnosticism,) but you believe that He's still out there (theism.)
These people should just suck it up and call themselves atheists.
Boy, look at you telling people what and how they should believe.
I'm agnostic because I don't know if there exists a God, and couldn't care less when it comes to the day to day affairs of my life.
I don't know if there is a teapot orbiting the Earth, but I wouldn't invent weasel words to distinguish between subtle groups of people who have varied opinions around the likely absence of said teapot. Especially not if most of the population believed strongly in the existence of said teapot.
edit: Also I'm not telling anyone how to believe, I'm just saying that people using the term agnostic as some way to contrast themselves with atheists either don't understand the term atheist, have an aversion to it or fear of using it to label themselves, or have some unsettled self-reflection to do on their existence because they secretly believe in a God but don't want to admit it. When you say you're an atheist you are saying you do not share the belief in God that most of the human population does. It's pretty simple.
So I'll put it this way: I am as certain that there is no God (narrowly defined as an omnipotent being) as I am that 0 times any other number will always equal 0. The reason is because omnipotence is a logically inconsistent concept, and is thus impossible. That's as certain as I can be about anything.
So because I don't believe in an Abrahamic god, I'm still supposed to take a stand/have an opinion on him. Why? Do Christians have an opinion/stance on Vishnu?
Is atheism often framed within the context of theism? Well, sure, because that's the category of the discussion. Like you, I have a "don't believe; don't care too strongly; not a factor in my life whatsoever" stance toward religion. But if the subject of religion comes up, and I am asked to give my stance on the matter, atheism is a better label than most. "Apathetic atheist," or even "atheist who rejects the premise of this line of inquiry altogether" are acceptable and defensible flavors of atheism.
Atheism isn't specifically defined in opposition to the Abrahamic religions. It so happens that those religions (particularly, Christianity) occupy a majority of this country's religious population, and as such, they're the belief systems most often pitted vis-a-vis atheism, and vice versa. But there were atheists and agnostics long before Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.
Being an atheist doesn't have to mean much more to your life than not being a tennis fan. The state of not being a tennis fan is largely irrelevant until someone asks you if you watch tennis. At that point, you are temporarily and conditionally defined as a non-tennis-fan, within the framing of tennis fandom as a subject. But your non-tennis-fandom doesn't have to define your life, or even be much of a factor outside of that conversation.
Religion is a much more fraught subject than tennis. But the precise subject of the analogy wasn't intended to be 1:1 congruous. I'd be sitting on my butt for weeks, trying to come up with a different analogy, if I felt I needed a measure-for-measure match. :)
I think over the past few generations we have lost more of those reasons to get together, and church is one of the last hanger-ons of these close knit communities.
That's something you generally don't have as much with other types of communal activities, and it's something that, in my experience, creates tight communities much faster, and bonds that often go deeper.
It's like friendships. There's a gradual strengthening over time, but usually the big 'jumps' are caused by personal or interpersonal crises; moment of vulnerability.
As an example, I understand that AA meetings foster a very supportive community atmosphere.
My local Linux User Group meets regularly and has a very friendly homely feel where you can bring in whatever problem you're working on and people are always happy to at least hear you explain it even if they can't help.
Meetup.com is a very good place to find meet-ups in your area which is a great place to start :)
You just need to find common ground and work from there.
Many parents assume kids get all the education for life in school. Teachers assume kids get most of their life education at home. This is not true all of the time but I've seen it far too often. The result is a lack of education and guidance for children. Some parents just don't have time for their kids, kids are left to learn on their own or from their environment, which is always less than optimal (yes, always exceptions to everything).
Colleges could offer credits for people who help staff and organize these places. Adults who were helped by these community centers could be encouraged to give back if it helped them in life.
Children in need of mentors should be the main area of focus in my opinion. They could call upon these people later in life if needed, almost like another parent (which not all people are fortunate enough to have). The children who were mentored would have a much higher chance of ensuring their mentor was taken care of later in life, when the mentor got old. There's just no downside from what I can tell, it's mostly a funding and organizing problem to solve.
Please don't take this the wrong way but excluding God from these centers would be important. Not everybody accepts that there is some magical being controlling everything, and many people have different gods. All of these people should be equally welcomed into community centers without fear of having God, Jesus, and the sins of the Devil preached to them constantly.
After mulling it over with some friends, I think it would be awesome to have a community gathering where the principles of its "teachings" are based on respect for the earth, each other, and critical thinking.
Instead of typical weekly worship, it could be replaced by something like "Science Sundays" - where folks can bring their kids for a lecture and experiment that the family can do. If one can find enough local individuals who could serve as advocates then I think something like this is possible. Although, I don't what spark it would need for it to reach critical mass.
The closest thing that we've identified as such a group is the Maker community. One problem that we've had in these discussions is that any time we try to add structure to the idea (ie, a common reference book, hierarchy) we immediately realize that it sounds like it would be mistaken for a cult. :( http://abstrusegoose.com/31
It's an interesting thought experiment, and de Botton writes engagingly. Well worth a read for his lateral thinking and, if nothing else, a starting point for your own thoughts.
I was astonished about the overwhelming response the church software got. Don't get me wrong, it's a great effort, but the sheer amount of votes it received seems somewhat out of proportion for what you'd expect a comparable project to get. So I'm curious if this Show HN maybe released some pressure in that regard.
But I do think the poll's setup is mistaken, as are people who feel their particular faith should be reflected accurately. It would have been better (and less fraught with squabbling over definitions) if we kept it simple and allowed people to self-identify as non-religious, somewhat religious, and very religious.
To me, the intensity of faith would have been more interesting than the precise flavor. I also think there is a community aspect we could have captured as a second variable: "how engaged/motivated are you by being part of your religious community?" - I suspect this is a big factor as well, maybe in some cases even more so than the actual belief in the supernatural. Who knows, but I would have loved to get some data on this.
The word 'religious' has enough negative connotations that even many religions like to challenge its use to apply to themselves.
I did a module of comparative religion a while ago which involved interviews with deeply devout practitioners of a number of religions. All of them said something like 'it's not really a religion, it's a way of life', or 'it's not a religion, it's a relationship', or words to that effect.
This poll, at least avoids that problem.
I think the argument with the word 'religious' is probably that it is perceived to have connotations of dry rule-following without any kind of meaning. It's not surprising that people want to avoid that sort of image, because they almost certainly don't see their own religion in that way.
You can be a Hindu atheist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka
Swami Vivekananda popularized the Ramakrishna school of thought, but they themselves deny to be called Hindus.
Goa deputy Chief Minister considers himself to be a "Christian Hindu": http://www.firstpost.com/politics/india-hindu-nation-im-chri...
Hinduism in not an organized religion like Abrahamic religions. The definition of Hinduism is very fluid in practice.
Similarly one can be a Buddhist atheist as well.
PS: Also please add Sikhism and Jainism to the poll -- two other major Indian religions!
This makes me think of my time in Japan. On polls (or when asked), the majority of the Japanese will say or mark down "Buddhism". However, for all intents and purposes, they're atheist/agnostic. They don't believe in God or gods/deities, they view it kinda the same way we view Santa Claus. They only follow a few Buddhist rituals out of cultural pressure/habit (funeral services, news years celebrations, etc). It's extremely similar to how agnostics or even atheists will celebrate Christmas even though they don't believe in God. It's fun, everyone else is doing it so why not?
Then, I learned about agnosticism, and I realized it better describes what I believe, and that my lack of belief in God is possibly incorrect. I still pitied the religious for their blind faith.
Then I realized one day, while pondering the subject, that because it is not possible to experimentally test for the existence of God, nor to derive any conclusion based on logic, then the question itself is in fact "extra-logical." It cannot be resolved with the scientific method, or any other means of rationalization. To even attempt to do so is itself irrational.
The question therefore must be, simply, "Do you believe in God?" This question does not attempt to bring logic, science or rationality into the picture. It is a question purely of faith, of which I acknowledge I have none.
So, in the end, I am still an agnostic, but one who now accepts that there can be quite rational, scientific thinkers who have faith in the existence of God.
Does it mean atheists are more open responding to polls about spirituality?
"OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years"
I suspect that many, many HNers, myself included, upvoted because of this: "software I've been hacking on for 7 years" It's great whenever someone shows off their side project, and astonishing when it's a project they've diligently maintained for a generation in web-dev years.
Past polls and discussions suggest that HN is somewhere around 3/4 non-religious (with various flavors of atheism and agnosticism most prevalent) and 1/4 religious (with various flavors of Christianity most prevalent). This thread is no different.
But HN also has a high regard for technical prowess and interesting projects, combined with a low tolerance for douchebaggery. Which means that interesting projects that happen to be targeted toward Christians (particularly one that could be easily forked for other religious or non-religious groups) can generate a lot of positive discussion... and the sort of people making snarky remarks about "imaginary friends" will tend to get downvoted/flagged into oblivion.
HN polls haven't been trustworthy for years. Too many people giving too many false results. Pg noticed this when there was a poll asking about the age of HNers and a bunch of people responded with "Over 80." He mentioned he'd make their fonts extra huge so they'd still be able to read HN.
Shit, I'd be happy about this on mobile. HN on mobile Chrome is just painful :'(
http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/faculty/behe.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe
edit:
He has a nice paragraph on his web page:
>>Official Disclaimer
My ideas about irreducible complexity and intelligent design are entirely my own. They certainly are not in any sense endorsed by either Lehigh University in general or the Department of Biological Sciences in particular. In fact, most of my colleagues in the Department strongly disagree with them.
Don't underestimate humans' abilities to selectively ignore evidence, the immense pressure of their peers, parents, and friends who have similar beliefs, and the underlying fear of death that motivates people to believe in an afterlife (and all the various attached beliefs from there) to allow compartmentalization of beliefs from knowledge.
Feel free to ask me anything you want. With the caveat that I don't participate in uncivil discussions.
Evolution vs Creationism is of course the poster child for this. The simple answer is I wasn't around for either Evolution or Creation whichever one happened so I can't give a definitive ruling either way. I happen to believe that God did some sort of creative act. What form that act took (7 days of creative work? or billions of years of guided evolution?) I can't really say.
Either one is something of a miracle to my mind though. Both appear to be highly unlikely to occur, yet I and your are here having this conversation so one of them had to. I choose to believe God was the motivating force behind whichever one it was.
I have one rule that I follow. My faith must be rational. If an article of faith is disprovable then I don't hold with it. That leaves a lot of room for faith though.
I do believe Noah was a literal person and I do believe there was a flood. I even like the idea of a global flood as it seems to allow one to explain some phenomena observed in Geological formations. However I'm not a Geologist so my opinions there are pretty uninformed and could just as likely be wrong.
Also, fossil evidence doesn't not support a worldwide flood. If a worldwide flood would have happened you have have fossils from that era all over the place in sediments of rock, but you don't. They are all found neatly organized in their own respective layers. Here is some more info if you are interested: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_flood#Fossil_layers
I think a localized flood is a much better explanation for people who believe that part of the bible.
You are around for evolution.
Can't speak for zaphar, but I for one have no problem believing that God could've created the world any way he felt like, including by letting evolution happen.
Despite being not merely religious but an actual Bible-believing Christian, I am nevertheless quite willing to accept that a good deal of scriptural text is metaphorical. A lot of it is pretty dang hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-stick obviously metaphorical, so the idea that the Biblical creation account might not be intended as an accurate scientific account is Not A Problem.
Regarding other possible inconsistencies, I find that most of the ones people complain about are like evolution- not actually necessary inconsistencies if you think about it. For the rest, I assume that one or the other is either wrong or incomplete, and hold off judgment until either scientific concensus or doctrinal assertion are changed. When it comes to questions of scientific fact, I usually lean in favor of science. When it comes to matters of philosophy or ethics, I lean in favor of religion. And for reference, I don't usually consider sociology or social psychology to be very convincing "science".
A lot of it is pretty dang hit-you-over-the-head-with-a-stick
obviously metaphorical
Origen: "[if scripture was purely literal] we would not certainly believe, when thus possessing the meaning of Scripture in a continuous series, that anything else was contained in it save what was indicated on the surface; so for that reason divine wisdom took care that certain stumbling-blocks, or interruptions, to the historical meaning should take place, by the introduction into the midst (of the narrative) of certain impossibilities and incongruities; that in this way the very interruption of the narrative might, as by the interposition of a bolt, present an obstacle to the reader, whereby he might refuse to acknowledge the way which conducts to the ordinary meaning; and being thus excluded and debarred from it, we might be recalled to the beginning of another way, in order that, by entering upon a narrow path, and passing to a loftier and more sublime road, he might lay open the immense breadth of divine wisdom. This, however, must not be unnoted by us, that as the chief object of the Holy Spirit is to preserve the coherence of the spiritual meaning, either in those things which ought to be done or which have been already performed, if He anywhere finds that those events which, according to the history, took place, can be adapted to a spiritual meaning, He composed a texture of both kinds in one style of narration, always concealing the hidden meaning more deeply; but where the historical narrative could not be made appropriate to the spiritual coherence of the occurrences, He inserted sometimes certain things which either did not take place or could not take place; sometimes also what might happen, but what did not: and He does this at one time in a few words, which, taken in their “bodily” meaning, seem incapable of containing truth, and at another by the insertion of many." - http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf04.vi.v.v.i.html section 15
Origen was one of the foremost Christian scholars of the 2nd-3rd century. This was the predominant approach Christians took to scripture until 19th century America, when literalism took over -- for a short time.
Of particular note, the earliest parts of Genesis would have been obviously metaphorical to any of the early readers... because they blatantly undermine the Egyptian creation stories. They take the most significant Egyptian gods and describe them as mere objects (even the sun and moon aren't named -- they're just "lights".) They take the most significant elements of the Egyptian stories and turn them around, twist them up on themselves, and use them to express how Yahweh is different from Horus, Isis, and the rest. It's like the way Shrek takes common tropes from Cinderella-type movies and turns them on their head, only serious instead of comedic.
Of particular note, the earliest parts of Genesis would
have been obviously metaphorical to any of the early
readers... because they blatantly undermine the Egyptian
creation stories.
Which admittedly some engineers don't consider to be true engineering. But given that this is Hacker News I assumed it was an acceptable claim.
If you say that god's more of a force from afar, why is that worth worshipping any more than another natural phenomenon?
1. Why don't Miracles get documented? This one is less difficult to answer for me than it might seem. First of all by definition a Miracle is not an everyday occurrence, is out of the ordinary experience, and is unscheduled. Given those items it's not too surprising that they would not be documented at any time relatively recently. Second I would consider the the Miracles in the Gospels to be documented. However you likely don't count those since they are not recent enough to be recorded by something more permanent than a written word that has been copied multiple times. Either way I don't find this to be a significant blocker to faith. Even in scripture Miracles were pretty rare except for during Jesus 3 years of ministry.
2. Why allow large amounts of people to live lives of pure suffering. To answer this one you have to ask what are Gods motives for creating us?
2a. Motive #1 is for God to be worshipped freely. In order for him to be worshipped freely we have to be free to choose. If we are free to choose this implies that we can choose not to. The Christian Faith holds that we have freedom of choice.
2b. It boils down to God having a choice between Robots who all worship him due to programming or Human beings of whom a subset worship him out of choice. He values the Human beings more than Robots. You will either find this a harsh decision by him or a loving one depending on your viewpoint.
3. I don't believe he is a force from afar.
All of that said my faith is personal and much of what I believe I believe because of personal experience that I interpret as Him taking action in my life. Not in the Miracle fashion you describe in your questions but action nevertheless.
I view it like non-Americans view thanksgiving. You can read the wiki page and it makes sense, but I'm not going to go out of my way to do it too. It's not really something that applies to me.
Which is to say, I think all religions we have that claim to have any kind of historical meddling from a 'creator' are rather obviously fictional and borderline ridiculous, but I don't have any better answers to "the big questions", so I'm fine letting people believe whatever they like without opposition or debate so long as what they believe doesn't result in the oppression of others.
I had been an atheist of the "cold" variety: life spontaneously arose from non-life in an undefined fashion, and everything relevant to the conversation evolved from this first life.. only the "observable" could be real.
Seemingly non-local consciousness-connections (a dream where something bad happens to someone and they die that night, you think of someone in that moment they call you, esoteric initations into new-agey meditation [law of attraction, remove viewing], they way the universe seems to be inscrutably "nicer" to me the more buddha-like it is [e.g. when regularly meditating])
The reasons my metaphysics changed are nearly ineffable; and are certainly not objectively verifiable (at least by me). The ramifications are easy to grok:
- The universe is a holy playground - The universe has some sort of intention - The more your intentions fall in line with the intentions of the universe, the more satisfying life is.
There are also some non-obvious (but ultimately important) "actionable" ramifications: primarily that sometimes the best way to solve a corporeal problem is to get the spiritual aspect (ie, the interface between you and the universe) in line.
Edit: nevermind, poll took off;)
Edit 2: zenjzen, you also appear to be hellbanned.
Or if they are then I think Muslims might also qualify as they also believe in Judaism + Christ + one more prophet. Though depending on who you ask they might require Jesus to be part of the holy trinity and not just another prophet.
PS: Granted, I think the general stance with most people is simply let religions self identify as plenty of religious debates end up with one side killing the other.
Many mainstream Christian religions disagree, citing various conflicts with Christian doctrine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism_and_Christianity#Chr...
In any case we could get bogged down in definitions and semantics, but if you come down on the side that Mormons are Christian, they are still probably the most interesting subset to break out into their own subcategory.
Since JW is usually categorized as Christian, I think valine's test should be considered approximate rather than exact.
I dated a woman once who dated a woman just prior to dating me (I'm male). We were having beers with a mutual friend and upon hearing that fact, our mutual friend said "wow, I didn't know you were bisexual Jen" (not her real name). Jen's response..."I'm not bisexual...I'm Jen. I don't believe in labels."
I'm not Atheist, Agnostic, or Lutheran (the religion my parents chose for me). I'm Chad.
I haven't used a label for anyone's politics, religion, sexual preference, or other complicated matters since. Thank you Jen. The best part...you get to focus on getting to know someone on a personal level instead of arguing about definitions :)
.... right?
I didn't mean to imply nobody would know the name, I specifically made sure there was enough information in the post (city/time frame/specific tech business type) so that it would be pretty obvious what company I was talking about (at least to anyone who was on the net back then).
The holy tract: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html