«

[Juni Ori]

Originally posted by rlbell@Apr 24 2006, 06:05 AM
He was an athiest.* Anyone who creates a false religion based on Wagnerian opera for the reasons of having a glorious mythological history for the aryan master race (the aryan race being another fiction) must actively believe that there is no such thing as a 'true religion', as a matter of first principles.

Well, actually that is kind of interesting debate. Because if we accept there are races, defined like we have for centuries, then Aryan actually should be race. However nowadays scientists have more and more concentrated to the facts, such as DNA, which is actually ruining the definition of classical races. It only depends on our point of view. Aryan being "übermensch" is totally different thing. I could also widen the discussion further, but I'm afraid it would lead to acts and accusations of racism and this is again widely off-topic, though interesting.

Back to topic, it is true that radiation effects do reduce significantly far in far less time than thousand years, but as we aren't sure of it's long-term effects, we should be careful and store the "waste" - which has still 95% of its potential left - carefully. Japanese scientists have been studying safe ways to reuse this waste and they have made great progress.

Edit: Heh, stupid mistake fixed.

[Tulac]

Originally posted by rlbell@Apr 24 2006, 08:05 AM
Athiesm can take the mantle of a full blown religion, and the greatest irony is that the athiestic religion of secular humanism, with its tenets of moral relativism, is being firmly and ruthlessly enshrined as the state religion of the USA, despite prohibition in the constitution.

Again I have told you the difference between belief and religion, secular humanism is a direction in philosophy, just like many others and you don't even have to be an atheist to follow it, you can be a tolerant religious person...
I don't see that Gods existance is denied anywhere in the US constitution, do you?
So I really don't see what's ruthlessly enshrined on you, tolerance?

[laiocfar]

Well the topic moved too fast for me, so i wish just to correct (if you let me) somethings that i found as wrong.

-plix

Religion is an aggregate, whereas Atheism is an atomic unit. "Religion" is defined as a belief system; which is to say, any belief system. Therefore, Atheism, as a belief system, is also a religion.

Religions are a little more than a belief system and atheism is a little less than a belief system. Maybe they can be compared as belief systems but ya will found that atheism is not a religion or at least is totally different. Religions are divided in monotheism and politheism. And atheism is out of them, maybe we can talk of agnostics and atheism as Notheism group.
Anyway, today when we talk of religion we are thnking in a monotheism religion, maybe most of people make a bad use of the words but the words means what the people think that them means.


-Blood-Pigggy

Pagan - One who has no religion.

Christian refer to minor politheism as pagans. Most of minor politheism were called paganism. For example, the classic greek gods are refered as pagans. And it was a religion, no a monotheism one but a religion at least. Buy a new dictionary and this time no one of 0.99.


-plix

Religion" has absoutely nothing to do with organization, it just happens to be that major religions are generally organized.

ALL religions got organization even the nimor ones, this is beacause the religions come from the shamanism of the stone age so at least, in all religions you found at least someone that make the rituals. ALL religions got rituals, beacause the rituals well denveloped by humans before than religions. A ceremorial burial was the first sign of humans with something more than material life. Later we got shamans, a guy who do ceremonies. From this we get religions.



-Danny252

So you can have a country whose political system is atheist? Seeing as atheism and communism are the same sort of thing, according to you.. ^^

U are right in that atheism cant be an state religion beacause it isnt a religion but marxism is an atheism political system since Marx descrived religion as "the opium for the people"

[Juni Ori]

laiocfar, otherwise I agree with you, but it is uncertain was ceremonial burial first sign of beliefs, philosophical pondering or such. However, it still may be, but that is something we will never know.

[rlbell]

Originally posted by Tulac+Apr 24 2006, 08:10 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Tulac @ Apr 24 2006, 08:10 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-rlbell@Apr 24 2006, 08:05 AM
Athiesm can take the mantle of a full blown religion, and the greatest irony is that the athiestic religion of secular humanism, with its tenets of moral relativism, is being firmly and ruthlessly enshrined as the state religion of the USA, despite prohibition in the constitution.

Again I have told you the difference between belief and religion, secular humanism is a direction in philosophy, just like many others and you don't even have to be an atheist to follow it, you can be a tolerant religious person...
I don't see that Gods existance is denied anywhere in the US constitution, do you?
So I really don't see what's ruthlessly enshrined on you, tolerance? [/b][/quote]
Ahh, but the brand of secular humanism championed by the ACLU is not tolerant of religion. Basically, they are trying to force the interpretation of the seperation church and state to mean that all religions are equally invalid and it is the height of abuse of power for any public official to express any conviction about religion, except indifference. Politicians are allowed to be religious, but not to the point that religious thinking taints their policy decisions.

[plix]

Originally posted by laiocfar@Apr 24 2006, 03:13 AM
Religions are a little more than a belief system and atheism is a little less than a belief system. (...) Religions are divided in monotheism and politheism. (...) Anyway, today when we talk of religion we are thnking in a monotheism religion, maybe most of people make a bad use of the words but the words means what the people think that them means.

Religion is not exclusively defined as theism. Your (relatively arbitrary) requirement that a religion worship at least one deity would preclude such religions as Buddhism.

The second half of that quote seems to imply that furthermore "religion" is further constrained to mean "monotheistic" which would, in turn, preclude Hinduism (Mimamsa, Smarta, and Mahyana Hinduism at the very least if you choose to be specific). Thus, by your definition, two religions with roughly 1.5 billion followers combined aren't actually religions at all.

There is such a thing as "organized religion," which only represents a subset of religion. It is perfectly well possible to have a religion without an organized belief structure. That said, try looking at it this way: obviously everyone here believes Christianity to be a religion. By your definition, however, being Christian means that you're not a Baptist (as there are no central authorities in the Baptist denomination). Being Christian also means, by your definition, that you must belong to a Church. Why is it not possible to be a Christian yourself and not be a member of a specific church? Furthermore, there do exist Atheistic churches which, also by your definition, validates Atheism (as a whole) as a religion.

Originally posted by laiocfar
Buy a new dictionary and this time no one of 0.99.

Such as Merriam-Webster or the New American Heritage Dictionary? Both have definitions for pagan as being, essentially, "one with no religion." The whole "non-Christian" thing actually makes a lot of sense when you put it in perspective: during that period in history, Christians didn't recognize other religions and thus if you were a non-Chrisitian you were considered (by the Christians) to have no religion.

Originally posted by laiocfar
ALL religions got organization even the nimor ones, this is beacause the religions come from the shamanism of the stone age so at least, in all religions you found at least someone that make the rituals. ALL religions got rituals, beacause the rituals well denveloped by humans before than religions. A ceremorial burial was the first sign of humans with something more than material life. Later we got shamans, a guy who do ceremonies. From this we get religions.

What? That's like saying "cars came from horses, so all cars have legs." It doesn't make much sense that because religion originated with shamanism (which is speculation, anyway) that a religion is thus defined as shamanism. You're talking about the evolution of a practice and drawing stipulations through a strange form of logic which simply doesn't hold.

Originally posted by laiocfar
U are right in that atheism cant be an state religion beacause it isnt a religion but marxism is an atheism political system since Marx descrived religion as "the opium for the people"

Marxism is Atheistic because Marx said "[Religion] is the opium of the people"? I'm sorry, but how are the two related? In the Communist Manifesto, Marx explicitly states that "[Communism] abolishes all religion." That is to say, there is no state religion in Communism. Argument about the religious status of Atheism aside, Communism would more aptly -- though not properly -- be described as Agnostic.

[plix]

Originally posted by rlbell@Apr 24 2006, 10:10 AM
Ahh, but the brand of secular humanism championed by the ACLU is not tolerant of religion. Basically, they are trying to force the interpretation of the seperation church and state to mean that all religions are equally invalid and it is the height of abuse of power for any public official to express any conviction about religion, except indifference. Politicians are allowed to be religious, but not to the point that religious thinking taints their policy decisions.

First of all, the ACLU isn't in any way shape or form a part of the US Government. That first and foremost invalidates that entire argument (just as the Christian lobbying groups which push anti-Gay and censorship legislation don't make the US a Christian state). The reason they push the separation of church and state is because many religions are highly incompatible: legislating along religious lines means legislating against members of other religions.

Government officials are in no way forced to deny their religion, they are just required to make decisions independent of any religion. Do you seriously mean to tell me that George W. Bush has been forced to refrain from noting that he's Christian? If anything, the current government uses religion far too much in making decisions.

You're welcome to call the system "secular humanism" as much as you like, but the fact is: the tenents of the Constitution govern the "religion" of the country, not a somewhat related, ex post facto philosophy.

[Juni Ori]

Originally posted by plix@Apr 24 2006, 03:33 PM
The second half of that quote seems to imply that furthermore "religion" is further constrained to mean "monotheistic" which would, in turn, preclude Hinduism (Mimamsa, Smarta, and Mahyana Hinduism at the very least if you choose to be specific). Thus, by your definition, two religions with roughly 1.5 billion followers combined aren't actually religions at all.

That was very interesting way to understand that post...

-buddhism can be considered to be philosophy instead of religion (which was clearly articulated before)
-how can people worship same religion, if there's no organization? wouldn't traditions and rules very soon differ a lot?
-that car/horse comparison is by far worst I've seen in eons
-communism is widely accepted atheistic - though difference between atheist and agnostic is very thin

But it looks like you're keeping your head no matter what we say. Have it your way then.

[plix]

Originally posted by Juni Ori@Apr 24 2006, 10:49 AM
-buddhism can be considered to be philosophy instead of religion (which was clearly articulated before)
-how can people worship same religion, if there's no organization? wouldn't traditions and rules very soon differ a lot?
-that car/horse comparison is by far worst I've seen in eons
-communism is widely accepted atheistic - though difference between atheist and agnostic is very thin

1. Yes, it can be. I'm not debating that point. I do, however, believe that most people (including most Buddhists I've met) consider Buddhism to be a religion. Wikipedia defines it as both a religion and a philosophy and Merriam Webster defines it only as a religion. Religion and philosophy are not mutually exclusive.
2. It has worked for Jews, Protestants, Islamics, and Catholics (which are all Abrahamic denominations) for some time. They differ, sure, but a majority of their core tennets are the same.
3. It was intended to be; that was the damn point. I created an analogy equivalent to the one made by laiocfar for the explicit purpose of illustrating how little sense it made.
4. Widely accepted? I'm not quite sure how you came to that conclusion. I'm also in strong disagreement with the assessment that Agnosticism and Atheism are so closely related. They are fundamentally very different. The only correlation is in the lack of belief in a deity (though the reasoning behind such a belief is significantly different).

I'm doing my best to reason my points with facts examples, whereas the responses I'm getting are providing little more than "it's so because I say so" (Tulac has been a welcome exception to this). "Because I say so" isn't enough to get me to change my mind and I hope the same is true for others.

[Tulac]

Originally posted by plix@Apr 24 2006, 05:33 PM
Religion is not exclusively defined as theism.* Your (relatively arbitrary) requirement that a religion worship at least one deity would preclude such religions as Buddhism.

Argh have you read my post? Buddhism is a religion, an Atheist religion, which only disproves your facts that atheism as a whole is a religion...
Now take differences between Atheism and Buddhism, those are the differences between belief and religion...

So basically you can have Atheism as a belief, or you can have Atheistical religions like Buddhism...

OK me and the aliens again, let's say that there's a religion that worships a future coming of aliens, let's call it paralellism, and let's say you don't believe in that, and you're an Aparallelist, but that is all you do not believe it exist, are you a religious person then?